


Sea of Flame

by Glyph



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 64,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glyph/pseuds/Glyph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reimagining of the events of the ME trilogy and beyond, featuring Rachel Shepard and Liara T'Soni. The universe is a constant flux of change, a sea of flame. Liara and Shepard struggle to make sense and meaning out of their intertwined lives against the tumultuous backdrop of the greatest threat the universe has ever known. Will they find happiness in this impermanence?</p><blockquote>
  <p>The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.<br/>-Marcus Aurelius</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Introduction:**

FanFiction.net is the primary publishing venue for this story, and I merely mirror this story here. Feel free to skip this introduction or come back later if you aren't interested in reading it.

**What this story is:**

This story is a retelling and reimagining of the events of the _Mass Effect_ series and beyond. The story will include a few deviations from the content in the games, the deviations growing more pronounced later in the series. Scenes and settings will be reworked, but the main outlines of the story will be readily apparent. The new deviations and developments will hopefully breathe some new life into the story, making it interesting to read even for those intimately familiar with the _Mass Effect_ series, but anyone familiar with the games should not feel lost at any point.

The main protagonists of this story are Rachel Shepard and Liara T'Soni. Rachel is a colonist, war hero who begins to fall in love with Liara shortly after meeting her. She sees herself primarily as a Specter, rather than as an Alliance soldier or Cerberus operative. She's neither paragon nor renegade but has a complex set of values that determine her actions, and these values change and develop as the story progresses. When I played through the series while role-playing as her, her Paragon/Rengade bars were very similar in size. She had more Paragon points than Renegade points in _Mass Effect_ , but this trend reversed itself in _Mass Effect 2_ and _3_. I assure you, however, that she is not a "renedouche" as some types of renegades have been described. She's neither a cigar chomping "Starbuck" badgirl nor a diplomatic "Captain Picard" dogooder. She can be thoughtful at times, but not intellectual; she underestimates her own intelligence. She usually chooses to do the pragmatic, safe thing, except when her anger or the _imp of the perverse_ compel her to do otherwise. As a survivor of the Mindoir massacre, her bigoted feelings about batarians are a rather prominent character flaw. Her parent's religiosity has also left a major mark on her life. Also, this probably shouldn't have to be said, but since some people write their Shepards as godlike, I would like to point out that Rachel will make mistakes, and come to regret some of the choices she makes throughout the story.

Liara is the other heroine of this story. I have less leeway to play with her character than Shepard. I have tried to keep her true to the character that she was portrayed as during each installment of the _Mass Effect_ series while exploring some of the motivations that drove her character change. I've heard some people say that they don't really like Liara in the first game, that she comes off as too much of a _damsel in distress_. If this is you, I would encourage you to hang in there during the early chapters; Liara's darker side will come out to play later. The other side of that coin though, is that I don't believe that she becomes an utterly ruthless sociopath once she grabs the Shadow Broker's reigns either. Like Shepard, I'm trying to write her as a complex and believable person. She will be neither the paragon of goodness nor the heartless renegade of information brokering that many depict her as. I don't feel that either of these stereotypes are true to her character. She does indeed begin the series as the second most "Paragon" squadmate (only Kaidan outranks her when suggesting Paragon decisions to Shepard) and she does go quite Renegade during her hunt for the Shadow Broker (though not as much as I think some people make out). But neither of these one-dimensional extremes are the core attributes of her character. They're merely outward symptoms of where she is at that stage of her life. Some of her core attributes include, a driving curiosity and intelligence, a detail orientation and tendency to obsess (first about Protheans, then information brokering), a workaholic streak bordering on the unhealthy that she sometimes uses to bury her feeling rather than process them, devotion to Shepard (this is true for both romanced and non romanced Liaras and might again be considered to be almost unhealthy for non romanced Liaras) and, of course, much more. I find her final stage to be one of a balanced personality, sympathetic and caring, but pragmatic and logical enough to scramble the eggs where it has to be done. She's as reasonably selfish about her own happiness, and by extension her bondmate's, as any of us are, really.

**Romance:**

Since romances are a sticking point for many readers I would like state upfront that, yes, Shepard and Liara will be in a romantic relationship in this story. And, no, there will be no threesomes, philandering, S&M, or anything else of the sort. I have no intention of writing smut, however, I reserve the right to depict romantic scenes to greater or lesser degrees of intimacy as I deem appropriate.

**Alternate Universes:**

Since I've stated that this story will be a reimagining of _Mass Effect_ the question naturally arises, how much will the story deviate from _Mass Effect_ as told by Bioware? Most of the changes to the story are small enough to be considered cosmetic. For instance, I have depicted the _Normandy_ as a somewhat larger ship than the layout provided in game, while still keeping her a frigate class vessel. Did you notice that there was no bathroom on the first _Normandy_? Where were meals prepared, supplies kept, water and air filtered? Extending the deck plan of the _Normandy_ beyond what was depicted in game is only a minor change. The main features of each game will still be readily apparent to fans. Shepard will still visit Noveria, Therum, Feros, and Virmire (where either Ash or Kaidan and maybe Wrex will die) before Ilos. She will still work for Cerberus to take on the Collectors and she will still gather forces to construct and deliver the Crucible. Though I am somewhat uncomfortable with certain aspects of the _Mass Effect_ series such as the Crucible or Lazarus Project, I will not excise them completely as they are far too deeply interwoven into the plot. Instead I will try to mitigate some of the aspects of these elements that make me uncomfortable, such as providing better foreshadowing for the Crucible, and leaving Shepard's body in better condition than, "just meat and tubes."

I also hope to make better use of Liara's position as the Shadow Broker, as this seemed like a wasted opportunity to me. Having your protagonist romantically involved with the most powerful information broker in the galaxy should have consequences.

I promise that I will work hard to make any deviations from the material presented in the games feel logical and satisfying. Obviously these judgments are somewhat subjective but I promise that I will not allow the story to fly off on a tangent because I have some pet idea that I wish to shoehorn into the narrative at all costs.

**About the title:**

_Sea of Flame_ is a reference to the idea that the universe is a constant flux of change, often likened to a fire by poets and mystics of many traditions. I want to explore this idea as a theme throughout this story. You'll find the characters dealing with perpetual change, positive and negative, and struggling to make sense and meaning of their lives in an indifferent universe that throws away some and elevates others with nary a care for fairness or justice.

I've chosen an appropriate quote from the ancient Presocratic philosopher, Heraclitus, as the epigraph.

**About that ending:**

I've reimagined it. In the interest of not spoiling it, I won't say much more about the details than that. Hopefully, you'll like what I've come up with better than what Bioware presented. You may be wondering, is it happy or sad? That depends on your hopes and aspirations for the characters. Everybody's different. I don't think that you'll come away feeling like your emotional investment in the characters was a betrayal, a cruel trick to jerk some tears out of you and pat myself on the back for being _deep_. But a happily-ever-after ending, drinks on the beach with Garrus, et cetera, isn't appropriate for a story about galactic extinction events either. (I do have a fluff story if you want to read that sort of thing.) Ideally, you should find a nice balance of emotions in my ending. Will Shepard and Liara be together when all is said and through? I'm not telling! I've got to keep you in suspense somehow!

Let me just say that I am no longer in the _frothing at the mouth with hate for bioware_ camp in regards to the endings. I do believe that the pre-extended cut ending warranted the hate that it received. But the extend cut has brought the endings from _abject failure_ to _poor but tolerable._ For now, let me explain what I didn't like about the ending as bioware presented it, and you can decide whether or not you respect my judgment enough to entrust me with crafting a new one. After all, this story will be fairly long, a big investment of your time, and you probably want some assurance that the payoff will be worth it.

First off, I have no problem with the Reapers' origins being a _zeroth law rebellion._ (though this is not what I chose for them) You can look up the term z _eroth law rebellion_ if you don't know what I'm talking about. I do, however, reject the idea that it is inevitable that synthetics will always come into conflict with organics. I don't see any reason why, as technology advances, synthetics and organics can't go hand in hand into some kind of transhuman future together. This might lead you to suspect that I like the synthesis ending to _Mass Effect 3_. You would be very wrong. Ignoring the moral implications of tampering with the DNA of every organic being in the galaxy without consent, I find the synthesis ending to be completely unsatisfactory from a narrative perspective.

In any sci-fi universe we are asked to suspend a certain amount of disbelief. The amount and type of disbelief we are asked to suspend is established early in the narrative. If, at any later point in the narrative, the author asks us to suspend additional belief, we tend to protest. We may be cajoled into accepting the request for additional suspension of disbelief if the request is small and is clearly in the service of an emotionally satisfying plot development. (For instance, I don't really understand fully what happens to Legion during the paragon resolution of the Rannoch arch in _Mass Effect 3_ , but it doesn't yank me out of the game world when my paragon Shepards choose it.) Although, really, it is simply better writing to stay within the originally established bounds entirely.

If the Force didn't exist in the Star Wars movies until _Return of the Jedi_ , but was pulled out of thin air and used to defeat the emperor at the end of the trilogy, you could bet that it would have been thoroughly mocked. For me, the synthesis ending violates the implicit author/reader agreement that is established in the early portions of a narrative, namely, "you will be asked to suspend this much disbelief (element zero, mass effect fields, et cetera), and no more than this." I would hardly find the synthesis ending to be less satisfying if a wizard appeared at the end of the Catalyst's speech, robed in a cloak of stars and crescent moons, and offered to wave his magic wand to create synthesis. Hey, why not? I already can't buy that Shepard's _é_ _lan vital_ was vacuumed up and spat out across the universe to draw glowing green circuits on people's skin and baseball caps. Once suspension of disbelief has been lost, adding a wizard does little more damage to a person's sense of immersion.

Hopefully, you will find that the ending that I have planned does not rob you of your suspension of disbelief. The motivations for the Reapers that I have come up with are at once both less complex than bioware's, and more mysterious. Clarity is often the enemy of terror. The Reapers motivations must leave them as terrible monsters whose very existence shakes one's confidence in the rightness of the universe, and must remain true to Sovereign's, "our kind transcends your very understanding," line. I'm not sure bioware's explanation does either of those things.

**About the author:**

This is the second story I've written for _Mass Effect_. In fact, these two stories are the only pieces of fiction that I've ever tried my hand at writing, so I still consider myself to be quite new at the whole authoring thing; constructive criticism is welcome. And, of course, praise is welcome too! ;) I haven't read many author's retellings of the _Mass Effect_ saga, because I want to keep their ides from influencing my story. Nevertheless, I have incorporated one idea from another author of _Mass Effect_ fanfiction, and I would be remiss if I didn't give her credit for her idea. I have decided that, despite Rachel's love for Liara, she is, in fact, a straight woman. Confused? Read on to see how this works! This idea came from the writer Awska and her amazing story, _Unity_. You can find _Unity_ here: fanfiction dot net /s/8078346/1/ I highly recommend it, it's my favorite piece on fanfiction dot net.

**Special Thanks:**

Thank you, David, for being my proof reader. (When you finally get around to it, you lazy ass.)

Update: David can't be arsed. But, my fanfiction heroine, Awska has stepped up to the plate as of chapter three. Who would have guessed?

And thanks to everyone for reading the introduction, and I hope you enjoy the story.

**Disclaimers:**

Bioware owns the rights to the _Mass Effect_ characters and universe. This is a work of fanfiction set in their universe, not an original IP. This story contains spoilers for all three _Mass Effect_ games as well as supplementary material such as the books and comic books. The story is rated MA and contains graphic language, violence, and depictions of adult situations. Read at your own risk.

* * *

**Updates:**

You can read these now, or come back to read them when you reach the chapters with which they were co-published.

**Web of Lies**

**Sex, Gender, Sexuality:**

Though there is nothing really apropos in this chapter, the issue of portrayals of sexuality within fanfiction has come to my attention as of late, and I'd like to comment on it here before we continue.

Sexuality is a pretty combustible topic for a lot of people. Many have suffered a lot of abuse for simply being who they are, and it's understandable that this is a sensitive issue for many. By this point you are no doubt well-aware that Rachel self-identifies as being a straight woman. Which is simply to say that, up until this point in her life, she has found herself sexually attracted to human men and not to women.

When I first wrote this idea (one which was borrowed from fanfiction writer, Awska), I never stopped to think about how important Shepard's "queer" status was to many of the people who "ship" this pairing. I want to _stress_ that I had _no_ intention of trying to steal away a queer hero from this community. I was allured instead by the breath of fresh air and new(ish) perspective that I hoped this could bring. You will find no whitewashing of homosexuality or bisexual erasure in this story. Some of the characters will be gay. Kaidan is bi, although he hasn't had much chance to show us this side of himself since he is pursuing a woman at the moment. (Liara too, like the majority of asari in this story, is unconcerned with the gender of a potential partner.)

You'll have probably noticed that this story is not an "SSV _Loveboat_ " story, and that the characters do not exist for our saucy gratification in this piece. (Nothing wrong with stories that are! I like porn too!) That Shepard will be falling for Liara in this story is not in any sense, meant to be a masturbatory, OH MY GOSH FIRST TIMEZ LESBO!111 fantasy aid for either men or women. It's important to note that, just as some people are gay and will never be compatible with members of the opposite gender, others are straight and will never be compatible with members of their own gender. There is nothing wrong with either of these types of people, full stop. There is nothing wrong with any kind of sexual attraction toward any sentient beings that are capable of informed consent. (If you're wondering why the strange choice of language, it's because that wording rules out animals and children, but not turians and AIs. Adult human beings are the only entities that meet those criteria today, but in fantasy and sci-fi settings, other possibilities can be explored, as I'm doing here.) Shepard's eventual attraction to Liara is not meant to be any sort of attack on, nor slight against, the fixity of sexual preferences that many report experiencing. Nor is it meant to disrespect or disregard the adversities that those who have always felt same sex attraction have faced.

It is a bit silly (and this is fanfiction, not Shakespeare after all), but my Liara/Shepard romance is a spin-off of that old warhorse, the _Love Conquers All_ trope. However, in this instance, I've deiced to justify it a little bit by dressing it up in a veneer of sci-fi pseudoscience. The sci-fi setting allows me to get away with inventing a method by which asari attraction can essentially bypass what, in our reality, are often rigid gender preferences. Exploring the unfamiliar or otherwise unbelievable is one of the joys of sci-fi and fantasy, and very much one of the goals of this story. I want to provide a unique spin on _Mass Effect_ without deviating to the point that my story is no longer the universe that you've fallen in love with.

While, for the purposes of this story, I like to conceive of the primary relationship as being F/A (female human paired with monogendered asari), I'm aware that we are all, "anthropocentric bags of dicks," and we likely see it as being F/F. This may be the primary relationship focus of this story, however, expect there to be other relationships, mostly F/M, but also M/M. I intend to stay true to the sexuality of the characters as Bioware created them.

If the fact that this story will include F/F, F/M, and M/M offends you in anyway, you may kindly excuse yourself from the story at this point without comment. And, yes, that includes any type of "yuck" response, because, "I'm OK with what they do, but I think it's disgusting," doesn't cut it with me. I am a strong believer in the _Love is Love_ slogan. I have no room for your bigotry in my life. All reciprocated love is good love, and it should not be discriminated against, whether it is a common target of discrimination as much gay love is, or even if that discrimination is "reversed" and is directed at heterosexuals. (For those of you who might wondering, yes this does exist, and it is partially responsible for prompting this author's note.)

I don't believe that I've given out any information within the confines of this story about what gender _I_ identify as or what preferences _I_ have in regards to my sexual partners. And though you may be able to make guesses, it is my strongly held belief that it shouldn't matter. If there is any possible combination of gender, sex, and sexual preference for the author of this story that would cause you to reevaluate your enjoyment of the story, then again, please kindly excuse yourself and take your bigotry with you. For the rest of you, thank you for your patience reading this unfortunately necessary author's note. I hope to see you again next chapter. And whether you are attracted to masculinity, femininity, the androgynous, all of the above, some of the above, or none of the above... whether you are cisgendered, transgendered, trigendered, or don't feel particularity gendered at all... thank you for being wonderful as you are.

**Liara's Character Development:**

I've noticed that there are growing number of people who are fans of Liara, but who don't like the Liara/FemShep pairing. Some of them believe that Shepard stunts Liara's character growth, or that stories where they are paired focus only Shepard's character development to the exclusion of Liara's. I hope to God my story doesn't do that. You can rest assured that, while not every chapter will be about character development for both Shep and Liara, that my intentions here are to explore changes and growth in both of them.


	2. Title Page

**Sea of Flame**

> That which always was,  
>  and is, and will be everlasting fire,  
>  the same for all, the cosmos,  
>  made neither by god nor man,  
>  replenishes in measure  
>  as it burns away.  
>  -Heraclitus


	3. Ruin and Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off to a bit of a rough start here. This chapter is _far_ too expository for its own good. Unfortunately the exposition is unnecessary for Mass Effect fans, and insufficient for an absolute beginner. Ultimately, nobody is served by it, however, it was hard to start the story "cold," or _in medias res_ if you will, without providing some kind of anchor on which to rest the action. I have therefore decided to keep it as is. It may not be the most graceful introduction, but I hope you'll give it a chance past the expository elements. Thank you for reading.

**Ruin and Ash**

> Every end is a new beginning.  
>  -Proverb

~.~.~.~.~.~

Ruin and ash. Like in a war vid. But the smell of it... smell was what the vids couldn't convey, and smell, smell is much more primitive, more primary than vision. Smell is unforgettable. The smell of all of the synthetic and chemical elements that make up a modern homestead, twisting and perverting the air with the foul stench of their conflagration, the memory of that smell, seemed to be burnt into her mind, permanently associated with the nauseating feeling of helplessness that she had felt that day on Mindoir.

She had smelled that stench many times now in her decade long carrier as an Alliance Marine, the scent of modern, technological civilization burning. She had smelled it enough times for it to become almost routine, enough to blunt any feelings that it might dredge up from the smokey past. That was another lifetime, another person. Still, she sometimes found herself thinking of Mindoir after missions in hot zones like Eden Prime, but only sometimes, and less and less frequently. It was so long ago, after all.

That teenager on Mindoir wasn't who she was now, that was half a lifetime ago. Now she was Lieutenant Commander Rachel Shepard, Alliance Marine, and the first human Spectre, in command of the SSV _Normandy_ , the most advanced stealth reconnaissance ship in Citadel space. She and her crew on the hunt for Saren Arterius, a dangerous rogue Spectre, intent on facilitating the return of the hyper-advanced machines responsible for cleansing the Protheans from the galaxy 50,000 years ago. And she had been given just one lead to track him down, a slim one at that. Saren's accomplice, the asari matriarch from the quarian's recording, she had a daughter, a scientist, Dr. Liara T'Soni.

All evidence indicated that Dr. T'Soni was currently engaged in excavations of the Prothean ruin on Therum, and that she was there alone. From what she could gather about Dr. T'Soni from the dossiers provided by the Council and the Alliance, the archaeologist's heretical ideas about the Prothean extinction had alienated her from the wider archaeological community. Her mother had connections to Saren, who was trying to bring back the Reapers, and she had unorthodox ideas about the extinction of the Protheans. It seemed likely to be more than a coincidence. Although, the dossiers also mentioned that she had been estranged from her mother for some years. Still, it couldn't hurt to bring her into custody, ask her some questions.

Rachel sat at her desk in what was formerly Captain Anderson's quarters, gazing at the trinket that the asari Consort, Sha'ira, had given her, trying to put together as many pieces of the puzzle as she could manage. She found that the trinket helped her to focus her mind, helped her recall the vision from the beacon, war, death, slaughter... synthetics, butchering organics. Perhaps it was the vivid imagery from the vision, not the geth assault on Eden Prime, that had brought back memories of Mindoir. But there was more to the vision than just a series of gruesome images. There was some kind of intellectual content, a message or a warning, but one she couldn't understand. The ideas it was trying to convey were in another language, if _language_ was the right word at all. But if she could just make some sense of the beacon's message, grasp even the faintest gist of what its creators had been trying to convey, maybe she could determine what Saren was planning, why he had thought that the beacon could lead him to the Conduit, maybe even why the geth, a race of networked artificial intelligences, had allied themselves with him.

"Commander?" Joker's voice came in over the comm system, interrupting her reflections.

"What is it, Joker?"

"You wanted me to let you know when we were approximately one hour out from Therum."

She had left the order with her pilot, to notify her of their impending arrival, before embarking upon her meditations. It was too easy to lose track of time when reviewing the beacon's vision, as if the vision had the power to influence thought, to draw her in until she was unaware of all the time that had passed in its presence.

"Notify the ground team to assemble in the armory in fifteen minutes," she instructed.

"Roger that."

In a way, she felt relieved to be interrupted. She had made no progress investigating her vision. But to be fair, she had never done anything like this before, explored her own mind with this kind of scrutiny. She wasn't an unreflective person by any means, she even kept a journal, but introspection of this caliber wasn't really her forte. Whose was it? She figured the past, and feelings about the past, were better left behind her, not dredged up. And her practical and pragmatic nature preferred to pursue a lead that was more concrete than the wispy quasi-reality of a vision. This Dr. T'Soni was real enough. And she was down there on Therum, the only tangible thread in a vast galaxy that might potentially lead to Saren Arterius.

_We had better hope she can provide us with some answers_ , she thought as she put the trinket back into her drawer. _Cause, God knows, I'm not making any progress with this._

~.~.~.~.~.~

As the bay door of the _Normandy_ cracked open, revealing the dusty red surface of their landing zone, Shepard took one last survey of her ground team. She had assembled a unique and diverse squad, so unique and diverse, in fact, that she had sensed some trepidation about them from Captain Anderson, who no doubt would have been more comfortable with an entirely human crew, but that was one of the privileges of being a Spectre, she got to make her own rules.

This would be the first time that this motley group of heterogeneous individuals would deploy together. She wasn't sure what to expect of them as a cohesive unit. But she was confident in the abilities of each squad member in isolation. With any luck, Dr. T'Soni would be as alone as her dossier indicated, giving the alien members of her squad further time to familiarize themselves with Alliance protocols and procedures before engaging in open combat.

Her squad of five commandos included two fellow humans, both Alliance marines, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, an NCO, formerly of the 212 brigade of the Second Frontier Division, and Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, head of the _Normandy's_ marine detail.

Shepard had first met Ashley Williams during the operation on Eden Prime. Despite suffering the loss of her entire unit at the hands of the geth invaders, she had kept cool under fire, and proved invaluable in helping Shepard locate and secure the Prothean beacon before it could be destroyed by the geth invaders. On Shepard's recommendation, Captain Anderson had had Chief Williams transferred to the _Normandy's_ marine detail. Her service record merited better assignments than she had thus far received, but her family name had been all but blacklisted in the Alliance; her grandfather held the undistinguished title of being the only human to have ever surrendered to alien forces. She had joined up despite that, and it was readily apparent to Shepard that Williams was a tenacious and independent spirit who deserved a better chance than she had thus far been given. The two were fast becoming friends.

The other human, Lieutenant Alenko, was a talented biotic, implanted with the older, more powerful L2 biotic implants. Captain Anderson had hand-picked him to be head of the _Normandy's_ Marine detail during the _Normandy's_ initial outfitting. The L2s caused severe reactions in many biotics of his generation, even leading to madness in some cases. He was relatively lucky; he was left with only severe migraines as a side effect of his implantation. Younger biotics had received the L3 series implants, less powerful, but more stable, biotics of that generation had benefited from the lessons humanity had learned with the unfortunate L2 series. Nevertheless, Shepard envied his talent and raw power as a biotic. Not to mention that he was as good-looking as he was talented, a bit shy, but not in a way that lacked self-confidence, and if Shepard was reading him right, he seemed to be expressing some interest in her.

She looked over at him as he stood, looking out at the rusty surface of Therum, and he turned as if sensing her gaze, nodding at her to signal his readiness to move out on her command. She flashed him a quick smile and returned the nod.

She had only broken it off with Dinesh a few months ago. They had been together for a little under two years, one of only two "serious" boyfriends that she had had in her decade long career with the Alliance. _A rather pathetic track record_ , she mused. The stereotype told her that men were supposed to be the ones who sucked at commitment, but it seemed to her that she was always the one to break it off. And, of course, she had been the one to break it off with Dinesh. She just couldn't see herself spending the rest of her life with him. And when the Alliance assigned her to the Normandy Project, an assignment that would require her to be away from him for even longer periods of time, she took the opportunity for a fresh start, telling him that she didn't want to try a long distance relationship.

Could things be different with someone like Kaidan? He seemed like that kind of guy that a lot of women dream about, confident, yet in touch with his emotions. A good communicator. _And a great ass_ _,_ she thought taking the opportunity to steal another sidelong glance at the Lieutenant, ostensibly to _review her troops,_ she justified to herself. Then again, Dinesh had seemed that way too. Maybe the problem was with her. The damned shrink they had saddled on her after Elysium seemed to think so. "Fear of intimacy," he had said. He wanted to blame every problem in her life on what had happened on Mindoir. But fuck him, he was gone, and she was the first human Spectre. So what the fuck did he know? Besides, she made friends easily enough. The ragtag group of alien squad members arrayed before her proved as much.

She let her eyes roam over the alien mercenaries which she had assembled to her cause.

There was Garrus Vakarian, a turian who had resigned his commission with C-Sec for the chance to hunt Saren with a Spectre, to gun outside of the bounds of the law, unencumbered by the rules and regulations that had frustrated his official investigations into Saren's activities. He was eager if a little cocky. And he seemed to almost hero-worship Shepard, even if he kept it well hidden under his cocky exterior. If there was one thing that could be said about Garrus, it was that he wanted to nail Saren to the wall.

Standing next to him was Urdnot Wrex, a krogan mercenary and bounty hunter. Though a freelancer, his most recent contracts had been with the enigmatic information dealer known as the Shadow Broker, and this had put his interests into alignment with Shepard's, as Saren had recently made an enemy of the Broker. After assisting in her investigation of Saren, he offered to stay on with her, a gift of goodwill from the Broker to her. She didn't trust him as much as the others, but she wasn't about to turn down a biotic krogan. If the broker was using him to keep tabs on her, so be it. He wasn't the focus of her attention, Saren, their mutual enemy was.

Finally, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, was perhaps the most unusual of the group, an adolescent quarian on her pilgrimage, her recovery of a geth data module had provided invaluable evidence that Saren had betrayed the Council and orchestrated the attack on Eden Prime. She was smart, energetic, and most importantly, the closest thing to a geth expert that Shepard had ever seen.

"Alright, we got an appointment with the doctor," Shepard said, stepping off of the _Normandy_ and onto the surface of Therum, her eyes surveying the camp outside the entrance to the Eldfell-Ashland mining complex.

Eldfell-Ashland Energy was a human consortium, with a strong presence in the human colonized regions of the Attican Traverse and an even stronger mandate to expand into the less colonized regions of the Traverse. In their slapdash rush to exploit the mineral wealth of Therum, safety and other protocols had apparently been ignored, and Eldfell-Ashland's miners had inadvertently discovered a new Prothean ruin the old-fashioned way, by blasting a mine shaft into it. That ruin was their destination. Dr. T'Soni was presumed to be somewhere inside.

It wasn't long after the _Normandy_ had touched off to begin its patrol route that the first shots rang out, sniper rounds, which penetrated Shepard's shields in an instant.

"Ambush!" Wrex bellowed, his hulking form making a surprisingly graceful dive into cover behind the abandoned armature of an energy drilling apparatus.

"Take cover!" Shepard ordered as she leapt behind a shuttle pod and hunkered down.

Several additional shots bit into the dirt around her feet as she took account of her sqaud and surroundings. Satisfied that everybody had reached the safety of cover she radioed Joker.

"We're pinned down by sniper fire," she informed him. "Do you have any tracks on the scanners?"

"Negative, Commander, just the five of you."

"It's the geth," Tali informed her, shouting from her position of cover behind a nearby shipping crate. "They can stay perfectly still and operate at lower temperatures than an organic body. A lot lower than the surface temperature here, they'll be practically invisible to the sensors."

Shepard mulled that over for a few seconds before recalling a similar situation that she had learned about at the Academy. During a minor skirmish with the Blue Suns over colonization of a mineral rich world near the Crescent Nebula, General Reztena Cerest of the Combined Illium Corporate Interests Protection Stewardship had hidden snipers in the caves along a ridge of mountains in a strategic valley system and shielded them from detection with a combination of thermal blankets and an elaborate air conditioning system that allowed heat to be vented out of the caves at the other side of the mountain range. While General Cerest's tactic had worked on the Blue Suns, the Alliance instructor had recommended a potential counter measure to this innovative strategy.

"Joker, have Dubyansky review the last few minutes of sensor information," Shepard ordered. "See if he can find any heat spikes at the moment they fired their weapons."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

Shepard listened to the silence around her as she waited for Joker to come back on the line. Her squad were hunkered down behind the various bits of camp site debris, sheltered from the sights of whatever synthetic eyes were watching them in the hills above.

It was nearly thirty seconds before Joker's voice came back on the comm. "We've got targets," he gleefully informed her.

"Light 'em up, Joker," she ordered.

"With pleasure," he said as the _Normandy_ roared overhead, soaring in from what seemed like nowhere, its main gun blazing.

The mass accelerator slugs chewed up the soil of the surrounding hills in a series of silent explosions.

"That'll drop em!" Garrus shouted as the shockwave from the _Normandy's_ mass accelerator rounds reached them, reverberating throughout the valley, and bouncing off the walls, shaking Shepard deep into her chest.

"Joker," Shepard called out angrily, when the reverberations had ceased. "Tell Dubyansky to dial it down, that's not a goddamned dreadnought he's firing on."

"Ah, he's just having a little fun commander," Joker apologized for the man.

"Ask him if his fun is worth buying a new set of eardrums for the entire squad."

"You hear that, Dubs? You pissed her off," he said.

Dust from the impact craters began to rain down onto the valley, slowly blanketing them in a fine red powder.

Dubyansky's voice came in over the comm, "sorry, Commander, I just wanted to make sure we eliminated the targets."

"I'm sure there's nothing left of them, but use precision over bombardment next time. I know you're within reg-safety but you don't _always_ need to push it to the very limit."

"Roger that, ma'am," the chastised man replied.

"And, you, Joker. Cut it with the tom foolery routine or I'll start running you like you're a first year cadet."

"Yes, ma'am," Joker's professional but slightly embittered voice came back.

_This is going to be an interesting war_ , Shepard mused as she waited for the dust to clear out of the valley. Neither the geth nor any of the Cidadel races had any experience fighting the other. But she could bet that the geth were quick learners, uploading and sharing tactical information among platforms. They probably wouldn't try that trick again.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Shepard was crouched and staring into the ragged hole in the side of the mineshaft where Eldfell-Ashland's ever-capable mining engineers had witlessly bored through into the chamber of the subterranean Prothean bunker. It was dark inside much of the bunker, but the jagged edges of the hole framed the view of a long corridor which stretched out for a considerable distance before her. The corridor was lined in white tiles and illuminated by a jury rigged selection of makeshift lights which were fed by a mess of power cables that snaked their way haphazardly across the floor of the hallway and into the bowels of the ruin.

"Sterile white... Protheans sure built things homey," Wrex commented, peering over her shoulder.

Shepard had noted with some satisfaction that the mercenary had not been quick to relish the prospect of a fight when the geth had ambushed them outside the entrance to the mining complex. He didn't fit the stereotype of the krogan brute that she had come to expect, he was calm under fire, not blood-enraged. But he appeared to be more disturbed now, by the architectural details of the Prothean ruin that they were about to enter, than he had been at the earlier firefight.

_The white tile does resemble a medical facility,_ she thought, _and krogan have good reason to hate doctors._

She decided to test the strength of his krogan bravery.

"After you, Wrex," she teased, gesturing to the jagged hole.

As if eager to show no sign of weakness the krogan bustled ahead of them with a confident swagger, climbing into the Prothean ruins without hesitation. The rest of the team followed suit and once inside the ruin they began to follow the tangled mess of power cables that twisted along the floor of the structure. The cables lead them deep into the ancient ruin, through narrow passageways, under tight crevices, and even down through several holes in the flooring. The ruin retained its sterile look of a medical facility the entire way. _I wonder what this place was for,_ Shepard thought to herself.

She had ordered Tali to map the their course onto her omnitool, and broadcast her data to their private omni network channel. The ruins made Tali feel uneasy, too much stone, too little noise, but she dutifully recorded their circuitous path through the structure, marking and noting each and every side passage which the inanimate matter of the wires unconsciously ignored as it ran heedlessly past the those dark, unlit spaces. In a fleeting thought, Tali wished that _she_ could be so lucky as to be blissfully unaware of the twisted maze of dark labyrinthine passages that surrounded them here in this cement and stone hole, deeper underground than she, or any quarian she had ever met, had been. But a single thought kept her mind fixed on those unexplored tunnels, _geth don't need visible light to navigate._ She was relieved when they finally came to a long, well-lit hallway with no side passes in which any geth might lurk.

"Looks like Eldfell-Ashland left in a hurry," Kaidan said, as they walked along the narrow path of the half-collapsed corridor, gesturing at all of the abandoned mining equipment that Dr. T'Soni had apparently pressed into service for the cause of archaeology.

"This ruin is a fairly new discovery." Shepard said in a hushed tone. "The whole site became Citadel property the moment they drilled into it."

"Leave it to the Council to leap at the first opportunity to get their claws all over human interests," Ash retorted.

"All Prothean discoveries become Citadel property," Shepard replied. "That's part of the deal we agreed to when we signed our Associate Member Charter."

"Then it's a crap deal," Ashley said, and then hastily added, "in my opinion, ma'am."

"You think we should have tried to go it alone?" Shepard asked

"I just think that we could have got a better deal. If the Council wants to use us to colonize the Traverse, they could at least let us keep anything we find out here."

Shepard was preparing her reply when a voice called out from down the hallway. "Uh, hello? Could somebody help me? Please?"

"Shit. Cut the chatter," Shepard ordered.

"Can you hear me out there? I'm trapped, I need help," the voice continued.

The squad proceeded down the hall in a defensive posture until coming upon a 'Y' shaped junction of three intersecting corridors. To their left, nothing but darkness was visible, but the view to their right was an image to behold, a young, asari woman, floating suspended in some kind of energy bubble, a large elevator shaft clearly visible behind her. She was dressed in a dirty jumpsuit that suggested she had been digging and she was eyeing the approaching commandos with apparent disbelief. Another energy field blocked access to her and her bubble, a barrier curtain, a shroud of energy, which shielded the entrance to her tunnel.

Shepard signaled Kaidan and Wrex to continue to the left and secure the other corridor while she approached the woman in the bubble, her gun still drawn.

"Dr. T'Soni, I presume?" She said, a slight smirk crossing her lips over her clever use of the "Dr. Livingstone" reference which, no doubt, flew over the asari's head.

"Thank the Goddess," Liara said, relieved. "I did not think that anyone would come looking for me. Listen, this thing I'm in is a Prothean security device. I cannot move, so I need you to get me out of it."

"Commander Shepard, Council Spectre," she introduced herself to the doctor.

The asari's face registered shock. "A... a Spectre? But I do not..." She shook her head in disbelief. "What business has brought a Spectre here?"

"I'm interested in asking you a few questions," Shepard replied coolly.

" _Me_? Whatever for?" Liara exclaimed.

"We can discuss the particulars aboard my ship, but there may still be active geth around. Our first priority is to get you out of there," She gestured up at the sphere of shimmering blue energy.

"Of course," Liara agreed.

"You... say you're trapped in there?" Shepard asked skeptically.

"Yes," Liara enthusiastically informed her, nodding her head. "There is a console on my side that can be used to disable this security device. But you will have to find some way past the barrier curtain, that's the tricky part."

Dr. T'Soni sounded almost impressed by the security measures that had imprisoned her in the bubble of energy, and Shepard was struck by the sheer absurdity of the situation.

"And just how did that thing trap you anyway?" She asked Liara incredulously, nodding her head up at the floating and immobilized woman in the bubble.

"I was exploring the ruins when the geth showed up, so I hid in here. Can you believe that?" She asked excitedly, shaking her head in disbelief. "Geth, beyond the Veil! I activated the defenses for this central elevator shaft, I knew the barrier curtain would keep them out. But when I activated it I must have..." Liara cast her eyes downward almost as if in shame. "Hit something I wasn't supposed to."

Shepard leaned back on her haunches and thought for a few seconds. "Well, we could blast our way in with some of the mining charges from back in the Eldfell-Ashland complex," she suggested.

"That would likely do grievous bodily harm to my person!" Liara protested.

"I didn't mean right here, on this level." She rolled her eyes at the doctor. "That shaft behind you looks like it goes down several floors. Am I right?"

"Yes, this is a central elevator shaft," Liara confirmed. "It runs the length of the entire facility. But I would still caution against using explosives anywhere near this ruin; it is quite unstable."

"Ash, Garrus, stay here and keep an eye on Dr. T'Soni," Shepard ordered. "The rest of us will take a look around. See if we can find another way into the elevator shaft. Call it out immediately if she tries to go anywhere."

"I do not think that likely," Liara huffed indignantly.

But Shepard ignored her indignation and started down the hall to rendezvous with Kaidan and Wrex.

"Spectre, wait," Liara called after her.

Shepard turned back around to face her.

"Be careful, there is a krogan with the geth," Liara warned. "They have been trying different ways to get past the barrier curtain. He has become... impatient. I fear he may simply decide to kill me if he cannot get past the barrier."

"Noted." Shepard nodded and proceeded off into the ruins with Tali following close behind. As she flicked on her flashlight she could still hear Dr. T'Soni speaking to Ashley behind her.

"I was unaware that humanity had any representatives in Special Tactics and Reconnaissance," Liara said.

"That's the tush of the very first that you're staring at, Doc," Ash came back.

"I am not staring at her posterior... I am immobilized in this position."

Tali brought up her omni and began to map their course again as Wrex and Kaidan came into view.

"Alright, boys. We're gonna take a look around, see if we can get ourselves into that elevator shaft the doctor's got herself trapped in," Shepard said to them.

"Any idea how long she's been in there?" Kaidan asked, concern evident in his voice.

Shepard shrugged. "Didn't ask. She didn't seem too concerned about food or water though."

"There's a stairwell just around the corner," Wrex announced, gesturing further down the hall. "Might be able to get into the shaft on another level."

Shepard nodded in agreement. "Let's head out," she said.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Can you not tell me anything about why you are here then?" Liara asked in frustration.

It had been over a half an hour and neither the turian nor the human had divulged any useful information, despite her persistent and, she thought, quite clever lines of questioning. In particular, she wanted to know why a Spectre had been sent to Therum to look for her, of all people. But if anything, the only thing her probing had seemed to accomplish was wearing down the turian's patience.

"Sorry, Doc, it's best if Shepard makes that call," Ash said. "Speaking of the devil."

"Looks like you've got company, Doctor," Garrus said, gesturing at the quarain, krogan, and two humans walking up behind the doctor. "And not a moment too soon," he added.

"Oh. how did you get in here? I did not think there was any way past the barrier," Liara said, craning her head around, trying and failing to get a look at the commandos approaching from behind her immobilized form.

"We used one of the old Eldfell-Ashland mining lasers a few floors down to blast into the elevator shaft," Shepard said, pleased at the ingenuity of her solution.

"I see. Crude, but effective," Liara pronounced. "I hope you were able to minimize damage to the ruin."

"Getting you out of there is my primary concern," Shepard replied curtly.

"Of course, you are a Spectre after all. But my concern for these ruins is not merely professional. This area has become tectonically unstable since the time of the Protheans. I am afraid that the structural integrity of this ruin is quite precarious as it is. This shaft is providing what little support is left in this ruin. Any damage to the..."

"Is this the console that deactivates that bubble you've got yourself trapped in?" Shepard asked, walking up to the array of blinking lights and holo projections.

"Yes, that is the one. But please warn me before... whoa!"

Liara fell to the floor with a thud as the barrier curtain and bubble disappeared.

"Uff."

Picking herself up and dusting herself off, she straightened her shabby and soiled jumpsuit, trying to regain some semblance of dignity.

"Well, I supposed it is good to be free of that device in any case," She declared. "But I still cannot believe all of this. Why would the geth come after _me_?" She asked, turning toward Shepard.

"You don't have _any_ idea why the geth would come after you?" Shepard asked skeptically, throwing the question back at her.

"Neither robotics nor quarian history are my areas of expertise," she said glancing briefly at Tali. "I am afraid I know very little about the geth. But if a Specter is seeking me, I must assume that you know something that I do not."

"When was the last time you were in contact with your mother?" Shepard asked.

"Benezia? I have not spoken to her in years. Is she alright?"

"Not if the commander has anything to say about it," Garrus said boastfully.

"Stow it, Vakarian," Shepard shot back.

"I see," Liara said hesitantly, glancing at the ground. "Then I can assume she is in some kind of trouble."

"She may have fallen in with a bad crowd," Shepard stated flatly.

"Benezia and I have had our disagreements in the past, but if she has, 'fallen in with a bad crowd,' as you say, then I can only assume that she is undercover somehow."

"A bit quick to rush to that judgment, Doc," Ash said skeptically.

"You don't know anything about the situation," Shepard agreed.

"Please, Commander, I know my own mother," Liara said dismissively. "She is not the kind of person who attracts the attention of Spectres."

Shepard sighed. "The short story is that your mother is involved in some shady business and I want to bring you in for questioning. In any case, there may be more geth around, we should continue this conversation on board the _Normandy_."

"I see. I will not resist arrest then," Liara said, resignation in her voice.

"You're not technically under arrest. I'd just like an opportunity to ask you some questions," Shepard replied.

"That sounds rather ominous," Liara stated.

"Relax, Doc, I have no intention of torturing you," Shepard assured her.

"That is reassuring... somewhat," she added after a pause. "In any event, this elevator should take us up to the highest level of the ruins and the entrance to the mine shaft."

Liara walked over to the console located in the center of the cylindrical shaft but hesitated when she reached the controls, glancing over at Shepard who nodded her approval to the asari. She tapped a few buttons on the console and the ancient elevator groaned to life, shaking off 50,000 years of dust as the large platform ferried the party up to the top level of the ruins.

The floors flew by with surprising speed, seeming to defy the extent of their previous slow decent into the ruin on foot, and as the elevator platform cleared the penultimate floor, it slowed to a halt, positioning the squad face-to-face with a scarred, one-eyed krogan mercenary. The massive frame of his bulk was standing squarely in the only exit, two geth soldiers to either side of him, their guns drawn on the party. With no cover anywhere to be had on the elevator platform, Shepard signaled her squad to stay put.

"Surrender... or don't... that would be more fun," The krogan called out.

"Who the fuck are you?" Shepard called back.

"It doesn't matter. Now hand over the doctor," the krogan spoke, his head tilted completely to one side so as to train his only eye on them, a posture that, coupled with his blue headplate, gave him an oddly bird-like appearance.

"She's staying with us," Shepard shot back.

The krogan shook his head. "Not an option. She comes with us, or you all die here."

"You'd kill Benezia's daughter?" Shepard asked. "Your _boss_ might have a problem with that."

"Those were _her_ orders," the krogan confirmed unflinchingly.

"Benezia! But... I do not understand," Liara exclaimed.

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble and shudder beneath them.

"Oh, Goddess," Liara cursed. "A seismic event."

Dust and small rocks began to pour onto them from the joints in the ceiling. One of the geth chirped something at the krogan who seemed able to understand what it was saying.

"It says there's no quake," he announced to everyone, no hint of concern in his voice.

"Oh, Goddess, the shaft! It must have been weakened by the laser!" Liara explained.

Shepard felt panic begin to grip her gut. "In case you hadn't noticed, this ruin is falling apart around us," she shouted at the still quite stationary krogan.

"Exhilarating, isn't it?" The krogan laughed.

"We don't have time for this idiot," she muttered under her breath, her hands behind her back sending coded signals to the rest of her squad.

The elevator platform on which they were still standing began to suddenly buck and sway violently, as dust and tiles from the ceiling began to fall in greater and greater numbers, blanketing the air with the heavy particulates.

"Everybody off! NOW!" Shepard shouted.

The squad charged forward, toward the relative safety of the occupied hallway ahead.

"Open fire!" the krogan shouted at the geth as he leveled his only eye down the barrel of his assault rifle.

Shepard watched with mixed pride and envy as Kaidan summoned all of his strength and reached out for the nearly one ton krogan biotically, pulling his lumbering form through the air, over their heads, and toward the back of the elevator shaft. Simultaneously, Liara summoned a singularity which ensnared the geth that had been standing to either side of the krogan. Her singularity sent them flying around chaotically, bouncing off the ceiling and walls, and incapacitating them before they could get more than a few shots off.

"Keep moving!" Shepard shouted, turning around and waving everybody forward. "Let's clear these ruins!"

No sooner had Tali, the last of her squad, stepped off of the elevator platform than the buckling metal finally gave way, crashing back down the shaft, taking the one-eyed krogan, who had been trying to stagger back to his feet, down with it.

"This way!" Liara shouted, directing everybody to follow her. Shepard's eyes followed the direction indicated by Liara's fingers. The light of the exit was visible that way, but the rumbling of the ground seemed to be intensifying, and the cacophony of buckling metal that was echoing out of the depths of the elevator shaft was beginning to sound to her like the Devil's chorus. Shepard turned back to see Liara's singularity fade out of existence, dropping the geth down into the black pit of hellish noises below.

"Move, move, move!" she shouted, pointing at Liara, ordering her squad to follow the asari. As Kaidan, the last of her squad, finally passed her, she turned to run herself.

Halfway to the exit she glanced back briefly, only to see the terrifying sight of the ground behind her beginning to give way as the subterranean bunker began collapsing in on itself, taking the surrounding environment with it. _Escape for thy life; look not behind thee,_ she thought to herself as she saw the radius of the expanding sinkhole growing at an increasing rate, reaching out as if to claim her terrified, fleeing form, and threatening to swallow her into its stinking, dark Gehenna below.

As she approached the entrance to the facility her eyes began to adjust to the light outside. She could just make out the _Normandy's_ silhouette, hovering stationary against the backdrop of the sky, its shuttle bay door open and ready.

"Goddammit, Joker. I could kiss you," she said aloud to herself, as her legs pounded furiously against the stone floor the of mineshaft, carrying her out into the light of day.

"I'm gonna hold you to that, Commander," came Joker's reply. She had forgotten that her comm was open.

She watched in what seemed like slow motion as each of her ground team made the hop onto the safety of the _Normandy's_ open bosom. Liara was the first on, followed by Wrex, then Ashley and Tali, Garrus, and finally Kaidain. Liara was just turning around to face back out when Shepard felt the ground disappear beneath her, her stomach informing her, with its twisted flutter, that she was in free fall. _Oh shit!_ was all she had time to think before she found herself flying upward toward the _Normandy_ and slamming hard onto the deck plating of the shuttle bay floor. Liara's biotic pull had saved her from joining the damned in Gehenna, at least for today.

"Whooh... shit," She said, looking up at Liara when she had finally caught her breath. "Thanks."

Liara forced a curt but courteous smile at her in return, sandwiched between gasps for air, before turning her gaze out of the _Normandy's_ open hatch and surveying the smoldering remains of the sinkhole below them. Staring up at Liara's form as she continued to gasp for breath, Shepard could see the sadness in the asari's eyes, even through her own struggle for air. Pain was etched onto Liara's face, what looked like deep concern. _Over the loss of the ruin?_

When she had recovered enough of her breath, Kaidan helped her to her feet and she stumbled over to Liara. Liara seemed to sense her approach, because she spoke aloud as Shepard neared. "Whatever secrets were waiting to be discovered in that ruin are lost to time now," Liara said as Shepard approached, her pained gaze never leaving the smoking crater.

"It smells awful," Liara stated matter-of-factly as the _Normandy_ began to pull away from the ruin and ash below them.

"I'm sorry," Shepard said, sincerely, laying a hand on Liara's shoulder. "But at least you're alive."

"I suppose so," Liara agreed.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Too close, Commander," Joker's chastising voice came in over the loudspeakers. "A few more seconds and you would have been sleeping in that smoking hole tonight. Your hardsuit isn't equipped to withstand a four hundred meter drop. You know, just for future reference... now... about that kiss."

"Tell you what, Joker, you forgo the kiss and I'll make it a point to ah... tolerate... your charming sense of humor for the rest of the mission," Shepard offered.

"Now that's a deal," he said. "Wasn't sure I wanted to kiss your ugly mug anyway."

"Don't push your luck," she laughed.

"We almost died down there and your pilot is making jokes?" Liara asked indignantly.

"Joker pulled our asses outta there. I think he's earned the right to a few bad jokes," Shepard said.

The crew was assembled in the circular meeting space of the comm room, each of them seated in one of the chairs that lined the circumference of the room.

"I see, it must be a human thing," Liara said, becoming thoughtful. "I don't have a lot of experience dealing with your species, Commander. But I am grateful to you. You saved my life back there."

"What did the geth want with you? Do you know something about the Conduit?" Kaidan asked, getting straight to business.

"The Conduit?! Only that is was somehow connected to the Prothean extinction. That is my real area of expertise," Liara explained.

"I've got my own theory about why the Protheans disappeared," Shepard said with a knowing smirk, relishing the idea that she knew more about the subject than this over-educated expert.

"With all due respect, Commander, I have heard every theory out there," Liara said dismissively.

"Ha, I bet you haven't heard this one, Doc," Ashley broke in.

"Then you have some new evidence I gather?" Liara leaned forward in her seat, her interest piqued.

"A Prothean beacon they excavated on Eden Prime, it burned a vision into my brain," Shepard stated.

"Remarkable!" Liara declared, jumping out of her seat. She began to pace around the circumference of the room, her head down and brow furrowed, talking into her fist as she went. "Yes... yes... that makes sense. The beacons were designed to transmit knowledge directly into the mind of the user. Finding a working beacon is exceedingly rare. So rare, in fact, that it might concern a Spectre... or a matriarch... or the geth. But the message would be designed for communication into a Prothean mind." She looked up from her meditations and found herself standing in front of the seat of the young human male who had been among her rescuers, Kaidan, his name was. He gave her an awkward and sheepish smile when they made eye contact which she tried rather unsuccessfully to reciprocate. Suddenly, Liara spun around on her feet to face the Commander. "Were you able to make sense of the vision?" She asked with barely contained excitement.

"Not entirely..." Shepard began before realizing that Liara was teetering on her feet, about to fall over from her quickly executed about-face.

"Uhh..."

Kaidan leapt from his seat and grabbed hold of the doctor, steadying her.

"When was the last time you ate... or slept? Dr. Chakwas should take a look at you," he said.

"I am fine. It is probably just exhaustion, coupled with the excitement of this new working beacon. I will be fine," Liara insisted.

Kaidan gave her a look of skeptical concern, never letting go of her shoulders.

"Still, it couldn't hurt to be examined by a medical professional," she conceded.

"Alenko, take her down to the medbay and have Dr. Chakwas take a look at her," Shepard ordered. "We'll continue this chat after she's had some rest. The rest of you, dismissed."

As the crew began to shuffle out of the comm room, Ashley remained seated in her chair, making eye contact with Shepard and nodding her head to gesture at the seat directly to her left. Waiting patiently for the rest of the crew to clear out before walking over to her, Shepard took a seat in the chair.

"Something you wanted to say in private, Chief?" She asked.

"I'm not sure I buy Dr. T'Soni's story... about not speaking to her mother in years," Ash said.

"I get the impression that she's telling the truth, or at least, she doesn't have much experience lying," Shepard offered.

"Or maybe she's just really good at it."

"Maybe, but she's a hell of an actress if the whole _absent-minded professor_ vibe she gives off is a front," Shepard said.

"I'm just saying, I've met some pretty good actresses in my day. And the way she handled herself during that fight with the krogen, she's had training, I'm certain of it."

"A lot of asari have biotic training, but it couldn't hurt to be prudent. Keep an eye on her, Chief. But be discreet about it."

"Will do, Skipper."


	4. Shadow of Eternity

**Shadow of Eternity**

> I saw Eternity the other night,  
>  Like a great ring of pure and endless light,  
>  All calm, as it was bright;  
>  And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years  
>  Driv'n by the spheres  
>  Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world  
>  And all her train were hurl'd.  
>  -The World by Henry Vaughan

~.~.~.~.~.~

The Council... ungrateful taskmasters. It was bad enough that they failed to accept the facts that were so plainly laid out before them, but it was worse that they were treating her as if she was in a probationary period. It was true that, with Nihlus' untimely death, they hadn't had much opportunity to evaluate her performance. But couldn't they be a bit more discreet about their intentions? Sparatus was clearly trying to get her riled up, chastising her over the loss of the ruin, testing to see how well she would handle criticism. And Tevos, Tevos was playing the good cop to Sparatus' bad. Shepard decided that she wasn't about to fall for any of it. She wouldn't let them bait her into a confrontation, give them an excuse to revoke her Spectre status or reassign her. The Council might not be taking Saren's Reapers seriously, but she did. They could continue to probe her all they liked, so long as they let her chase after Saren.

Brooding over the rather paternal attitude the Council had assumed in regard to their newest Spectre, she made her way down the stairs from the CIC to the crewdeck, and catching Kaidan exiting the medbay, flagged him down, beckoning him over to her.

"How's our young scientist doing?" she asked him as he approached.

"Ha, I think she's older than both of us put together," he joked. "But Dr. Chakwas thinks she's going to be fine, a little dehydrated is all. She was in that bubble for a few days."

"You seem to have taken a special concern for her," Shepard noted.

"Ma'am?"

"You have a thing for asari, Lieutenant?" she asked, playfully.

"Ah, no, ma'am!" Kaidan declared adamantly, shaking his head for emphasis. And then, as if finding himself embarrassed at the over-enthusiasm of his reaction, he went on, "I mean, it's not that I don't think they're attractive and all. But it's not like that. I'm not interested in her. I mean she's pretty and all... but I'm not like that..."

"Not like that..." Shepard repeated coyly.

"That's not how I meant it." He began absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, it's not that I don't like girls... I do. But I go for more of the... well, athletic type, if you know what I mean."

Shepard smiled and laughed. "Relax, Lieutenant, I was only teasing you."

"Ah... I see, Commander," he said, relieved. "I have to say, you run one the most informal operations I've ever been a part of."

"This isn't an Alliance operation anymore, and I have no problem with my crew getting a little _informal_. So long as they know to respect the chain of command," she said, crossing her arms and tilting her head to one side as she smiled at him.

"No question there, ma'am. Tell me, do you... make it a habit of teasing all of the crew, or just me?" he asked.

"I don't know. I haven't had the privilege of commanding as a Spectre before... We'll just have to see if I end up teasing the rest of the crew... or if I reserve that for you." Her friendly smile turned into a crooked grin.

"That _will_ be interesting to see," he agreed, smiling back at her as he walked off.

That he liked her was obvious, but she was still trying to decide if she really liked him. He was definitely cute; he had that much going for him. But he came off as the serious commitment type. She had gone twenty-nine years without much in the way of serious commitment, and she wasn't about to start now, not while Saren was out there, threatening the galaxy. Still, twenty-nine was really the right age to start looking for something more serious, wasn't it? _Maybe after all of this is over_ , she thought as she stepped into the medbay. _And if we can catch him_ , she corrected herself.

Liara was sitting on the edge of the examination table nursing a bottle of Sirta Foundation's infamously disgusting nutrient juice with a sour look on her face, while Dr. Chakwas was busy typing away at her computer.

"How's our patient?" Shepard asked, walking over to Dr. Chakwas.

"She should be fine," Dr. Chakwas said, swinging around in her chair to face Shepard. "She just needs some rest and fluids, as well as a good meal or two."

"Can she answer a few questions?" Shepard asked.

"Thinking about conducting an interrogation, Commander?" Dr. Chakwas said, shaking her head in disapproval. "She can answer a few questions, but nothing too stressful."

"I am quite fine, Doctor," Liara added from across the room.

"I make that determination here," Dr. Chakwas replied. "You need to get some rest... and finish that nutrimental juice."

Liara scowled and went back to slurping the disgusting thick liquid.

"So, nothing stressful... got it," Shepard said to Dr. Chakwas.

"She's dehydrated, undernourished, and tired," Dr. Chakwas stressed. "Now that's nothing life threatening, but I don't want to hear that my patient almost passed out again because a certain Spectre couldn't wait a day or two to question her."

"This is important, Doc," Shepard said, her tone becoming more respectful. "But you have my word; I won't stress her out, scout's honor."

Dr. Chakwas rolled her eyes at the "scout's honor" bit. "I can see I'm not going to dissuade you," she said, the tone of her voice admitting a reluctant defeat. "But I mean it. Go easy on her."

Shepard nodded silently before turning around.

"Dr. T'Soni," Shepard began, walking over to the door on the far side of room. "We don't have many places on this ship that are more private and more on-hand than the medbay's supply room. If you'll follow me."

Liara hopped off of the examination table and headed toward the door at the back of the medbay where Shepard was standing.

"Ah, ah, ah," Dr. Chakwas admonished from across the room. "Take that juice with you."

Liara returned to the table and retrieved the bottle.

"And you better have finished it by the time you two are done in there," Dr. Chakwas admonished as the two women disappeared into the supply room.

Liara seated herself at the small desk that was tucked into the corner of the room. "So, how does this begin?" she asked, looking up at the human Spectre.

"Well, I'm interested to hear what you know about the Conduit for starters," Shepard offered, leaning up against the wall.

"I know very little, I'm afraid. A few scraps of painstakingly recovered data from a Prothean archive unearthed several centuries ago referred to a Conduit, along with some fragments about the extinction of the empire, but speculation as to what the Conduit is runs wild with little evidence to ground such speculations in objective fact."

"So nobody has _any_ idea what this Conduit is?" Shepard asked.

"I am afraid not. It is a topic so obscure that very few Prothean researchers know of it at all. I only know of it because my area of expertise is the Prothean extinction."

Changing topics, Shepard asked, "does the name Saren Arterius mean anything to you?"

"Saren..." the asari became thoughtful. "No, I do not... wait... he is one of your Spectres, is he not?"

"Think hard, Doctor. Do you remember your mother ever mentioning him?"

"I am afraid not," she replied, and after a pause she added, "Spectre, you still have not told me what has become of my mother. What little you _have_ told me has me quite worried for her."

"We'll come to that shortly," Shepard assured her. "One more. Does the word _Reaper_ mean anything to you?"

"It is another one of the words often associate with the Conduit in the data fragments."

"That's _all_ you know about it?" Shepard asked exasperated.

"I am afraid that is all _anybody_ knows about it, in truth. Other words of interests include references to a Crucible, and a Project Vengeance and Project Phoenix. Other than the fact that these were items of great interest to the Protheans in their final years, nothing else is known about them."

"Those other words don't mean anything to me." Shepard sighed. "It seems like this has been a waste of time then."

She rubbed the side of her temples and gazed down at the deck plating.

"I do not consider you saving my life to be a waste of time," Liara declared.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way," Shepard apologized, looking up at her. "It's just that there's some big issues at stake here." Shepard returned her gaze to the floor and seemed to lose herself in intense thought.

After an uncomfortable pause Liara mustered the courage to speak. "Spectre," she began tentatively. "If you have accessed a working beacon, then it is your duty to share what you have learned with the greater scientific community."

"It's not that simple," Shepard said dismissively. "The vision is... confusing. The beacon was damaged, and it was destroyed while it was... interfacing with me."

"All the more reason to share the information," Liara said. "You may be the only individual alive who has accessed a working beacon."

Shepard shrugged. "Like I said, before, I can hardly understand it myself."

"Perhaps I could help you to make sense of it," Liara offered.

"What do you mean?"

"I could join my consciousness to yours. My knowledge of the Protheans may help you to make sense of it. And I would be _very_ interested in seeing an actual Prothean transmission, even if I can't help."

"I'm not sure that I trust you enough to allow you into my mind," Shepard stated bluntly.

"I would not have to go very deep," Liara clarified "I can restrict the meld to little more than what you choose to show me. You could disengage at any time if you are uncomfortable with something I am doing. If you want, we can have a monitor present with us during the meld."

What Dr. T'Soni was telling her made sense. That is, it accorded with everything that she had read in the Alliance's literature about asari melding. An asari couldn't really overpower another person's mind with her own, at least, not if that person was physically stronger than the asari. There would be a chance to break away before the meld could reach that state. Cases of what was colloquially referred to as "mind rape" were very rare, and almost always included physical restraint of the victim. Nevertheless, Shepard had to admit that, on some level, she shared a few of the standard fears about "asari mind control" that her rational mind knew were baseless rumors.

"I don't know," Shepard said. "I've always considered what's up here to be... well... private."

"I understand if you are unwilling to share your mind with me, many non-asari are hesitant to participate in a meld, though it is not an uncommon practice among my kind. But consider the importance of the information trapped inside your mind," Liara argued. "If you were to die on one of your missions, that knowledge would die with you."

"It may be more important than mere historical interest," Shepard said. "That Spectre I mentioned earlier, Saren, he's working for the race that wiped out the Protheans."

Liara jumped from her chair. " _What_? And you have evidence of this race?"

"Most of the evidence is up here," Shepard said, pointing to her head.

"Spectre, this is... I cannot... I must see this vision! Please!" She pleaded. "This is the culmination of my life's work; decades of research could be vindicated by what you have seen."

"Do you really think that you can make anymore sense of the vision than I can?" Shepard asked hopefully.

"I cannot say, but if it is as important as you claim, then is it not worth the effort of trying?" Liara reasoned, seeming flabbergasted at the human's reticence.

The truth was, she was out of leads. Dr. T'Soni was the only connection to Saren that the Council had provided her with, and she had turned out to be no connection at all. But perhaps she might be useful anyway. The Council might not be inclined to take her visions of the Reapers seriously, but Dr. T'Soni was. The Doctor had deduced that such a race must exist from her own research, and she was used to having others dismiss her work.

"You're right," Shepard declared, putting her irrational fears behind her. This whole thing made her nervous as hell. Despite her rational mind telling her that there was nothing to fear, the idea of having this stranger in her mind, even in a limited capacity was just... weird. The Doctor seemed harmless enough, that is, if Ash wasn't right, if she wasn't faking it in some manner. _There's nothing to worry about,_ she reminded herself. _You can break away at any time._ Fuck, this was scary. _Been in countless warzones... what's this one little asari, anyway?_ she thought to herself, psyching herself up. _Why should this stupid little circus trick that asari can do bother me?_

"Do you wish to bring Dr. Chakwas in to monitor?" Liara asked, apparently reading the unsteadiness of Shepard's face.

"Hell no." Shepard let out a nervous laugh. "There's no way she'd let you try this until at least tomorrow. But I want to get started now," Shepard declared, projecting more confidence than she really had.

"Then I am ready to begin, whenever you are," Liara stated.

Shepard swallowed her fear and nodded her consent to Liara. Liara stepped forward and put her hand to the side of Shepard's head, cupping it gently.

"Relax, Commander. Reach out and touch the threads that bind us, one to another. Let go of your physical shell, ever-shifting, ever-changing, a trapping that shackles you to the flow of time. Let go of time. Embrace eternity!"

Confusion. Vertigo. White light. Blinding white light. No sense of time. How long had she been here? It seemed like it could have been any duration of time, as if her internal clock was in the off position. Seconds, years, without her internal sense of time, her understanding of duration was utterly gone, any guess seemed as good as another. Then, something temporal finally happened, an event. It still wasn't enough to displace the feeling that she was outside of time, but she could at least say that there was a before and an after. A before the other presence, alien and feminine became known to her and an after.

_Relax, Commander. We are still in the supply room._ Shepard realized that she _did,_ in fact, have a physical body, that it _was_ located somewhere in time and space. She was still in the supply room... sort of. And she also realized that she was NOT relaxed. _Relax. Relax, Commander, please. It is hard to hold this state if you fight like that._ As soon as her focus shifted back to the presence she lost all track of the room and time. The presence seemed to grow more intense. _I need you to calm down. Here, feel me, I am calm._ A wave of feelings washed over her, excitement, curiosity, concern, and finally, weariness, and exhaustion. But these were not her own feelings, were they? It was becoming hard to tell, and suddenly, for a brief instant, she felt as if she knew exactly what it was like to be Liara T'Soni.

Gestalt: {Concern. Mother, where are you, are you alright? Excitement. A vision from a beacon! Trepidation. Is she calming down? She doesn't trust. Must be gentle with her. Confusion. This is Liara? This me hearing myself in Liara? Embarrassment. Oh, Goddess, I've gone to far!}

This lasted for only the briefest of moments before Liara's mind went reeling away, leaving only the emotions that she had been feeling just moments before, embarrassment now _very_ prominent among them.

_Sorry! I am so sorry. I will try to keep that in check._ Liara spoke in her mind. _It is difficult to restrict the meld so severely._

The last of Liara's feelings drifted away too, leaving Shepard feeling alone, almost lesser. But she _was_ much more calmed. In that brief instant when she had seen Liara in almost her entirety it had become crystal clear to her that Liara was a trustworthy individual.

_Now, try to show me your vision of the beacon_ , Liara prompted.

_How?_ Shepard asked, confused.

_I can't really say, just try to recall it as best you can. Bring it to the forefront of your mind. I will do the rest._

The beacon's vision came crashing back to her, confusion, terror, nausea, and the clear feeling that somebody was speaking, that this was a structured language, not merely a haphazard cognitive jumble. But she couldn't understand the words. No, _words_ was the wrong word... more like _ideas_ , direct thoughts. But the thoughts were bizarrely shaped, as if distorted, foreign, like crystals of impossible geometry. It was as if she was some junky in the throes of a bad trip, her drug addled mind incapable of making sense of concepts that she had once taken for granted. The emotions underneath the thoughts were comprehensible, but the intellectual content was confused, alien. As if some extra-dimensional entity that didn't share the same sorts of abstract concepts that she took for granted, like space and time and number, was trying to have a conversation with her. And then there was the dizzying moments when the floor seemed to fall out from underneath her, the parts where something was missing from the message, and emptiness and silence rushed in all at once, instantly filling her mind with emptiness where there had been a cacophony of confusion just moments before.

"Remarkable!" Liara declared when it was over, gently easing her mind away from Shepard's.

"That was... it was like you replayed it with such accuracy. And it seemed different somehow. I think it made more sense!" Shepard exclaimed enthusiastically.

Liara sank back down into her chair, clutching her head.

"Um, are you alright?" Shepard asked.

Liara was grasping the sides of her head, a pained look on her face.

"I am fine, just... inexperienced at this. But, yes, when our minds are linked each of our personal experiences of the vision will color the other's. That is no doubt why it felt different. You understood the vision as well as I did... and I as well as you, for that mater."

"You don't look fine," Shepard said. "Dr. Chakwas is gonna to kill me."

"It is difficult to keep the meld contained to only a single memory, no feelings or sensory impressions or other thoughts. Many asari have become quite masterful at it, but I have little practice; it strains me."

"Maybe you should drink some more of that juice," Shepard suggested.

Liara fumbled for the juice bottle on the desk and after finding it, forced the rest of the liquid down her throat in several large gulps.

"I think that we should do that again, if you're up for it." Shepard said. "When you've had some time to recover that is."

"I look forward to it," Liara said, still clutching her head. "It was the most fascinating thing I have seen in... well... ever."

"Is this going to happen to you every time?" Shepard asked with concern.

"If we restrict the meld to nothing but the vision, then probably, yes."

"So what are the other options then?" Shepard asked tentatively.

"The more we share, the less stressful it is. As I am sure you are aware, the ability originally evolved as part of our mating practices. We asari do not exchange genetic material like most other species. Instead, our nervous systems intertwine with one another. But you were not asking for a biology lesson. The important point is that we still find that opening ourselves up fully to a partner comes completely naturally. It takes more training to... narrow... the scope of the meld. There is a full spectrum of melding, from the most restrictive, as we just experienced, to the most open, usually employed only among lovers. "

"Are you suggesting that we..."

" _What_? No!" Liara shook her head, and then winced as her migraine and nausea returned full force. "I was merely suggesting that..."

"Relax," Shepard chuckled. "I'm just kidding. I'm straight anyway."

"Straight... yes... I am aware of the existence of such sexual preferences in most species, but they have little meaning to asari."

"Yeah, I guess having one gender would tend to do that, wouldn't it?" Shepard said, feeling slightly guilty for having teased the asari. With the experience of Liara's mind still fresh in her brain, the idea of teasing this socially inept archaeologist who seemed to have little grasp of human humor, seemed a lot less appealing than it had before.

"So what sorts of things would we be sharing if we tried this again... 'less restrictive?'" She asked Liara.

"It would ease my burden considerably if we shared emotions and sensory experiences, these are some of the hardest things to repress." She paused for a moment and then became very serious. "Shepard, it is important to me that you understand that this is not in anyway sexual. I am aware of the rumor of asari promiscuity, and I can assure you that it is quite baseless. We asari choose our partners with great care. For us, a partner is someone who we share the deepest parts of ourselves with."

"I'm sorry, I was only joking earlier... honest. Like I said, I'm straight anyway," Shepard assured her.

"And I am not precisely a woman either," Liara came back.

"Close enough," Shepard chuckled. "But I'll be sure to let Kaidan know that." She smiled warmly at Liara.

"I... I do not understand."

"It's nothing," Shepard said, dismissively waving her hand, trying to make Liara feel more at ease.

"I am ready to try this again, if you are," Liara said, standing up.

She still looked a little green, but Shepard nodded her approval anyway.

"You will feel some of my emotions, perhaps think some of my thoughts as if they were your own. You will feel as if you are standing in my body. And the same will be true for me of course... I suggest that you do not focus on that fact. The experience of me experiencing you experiencing me, ad infinitum, can be... disorienting to beginners."

"I'm actually still a little nervous about this," Shepard confessed.

"So am I, Commander." Liara smiled nervously back at her.

"Honestly, I glimpsed your mind in its entirety for a brief moment back there."

"Yes, that was... quite unfortunate," Liara said, blushing. "I will ensure that it does not happen again."

"Maybe it was a happy accident," Shepard offered. "I feel like I can trust you with this after seeing you for who you really are."

"I am... pleased... that you feel that way." She smiled warmly.

Still nervous about sharing thoughts and feelings with Liara, even after glimpsing her mind, Shepard reached down into her reserves and willed herself to calmness, so that Liara wouldn't have to spend her energy trying to relax her again.

"Now, relax, Shepard," Liara spoke, cupping her hand gently to Shepard's face. "Look into my eyes. Embrace eternity!"

~.~.~.~.~.~

"That was quite a long interrogation session, Commander. I hope you didn't scare the wits out of her," Dr. Chakwas said when Shepard finally emerged from the back room.

"She is fine, Doctor. Incidentally, she will be lodging in the supply closet for the indefinite future," Shepard said.

Dr. Chakwas gave her a confused look. "In the supply closet?" She asked in disbelief.

"She prefers solitude, and the supply closet is quiet and out of the way. I could use a fresh change of clothes though."

"You could? Well, I'm sure you have plenty in your quarters." She crossed her arms and stared at the Commander.

"Sorry, slip of the tongue. I meant that Liara could use some clean clothes. Do you have any spare medical tunics?"

"They're back there in my... _her_ closet," Dr. Chakwas stated, giving Shepard a perfunctory medical examination with her eyes.

"Thank you, Doctor. I would be most appreciative if you would direct her to them."

"Very well, Commander," Dr. Chakwas said finding herself almost speechless.

When Shepard had left the medbay the doctor mumbled to herself, "keep that up, Commander, and you'll be on your way to an early psych evaluation. And I know how much you love those."

She shook her head in astonishment again, and made for the supply closet to check in on her newest patient.

~.~.~.~.~.~

After her shower, Shepard seated herself at her desk and began typing in her journal. The daily ritual had started as an exercise forced on her by the psychologist that the Alliance had dumped on her after Mindoir. She had hated it at first, but the practice had grown on her to the point where she had kept it up all these years. She didn't write much about military operations, that was reserved for reports and debriefings, the journal was for personal thoughts, feelings. She even tried to keep up with the practice of ending the journal with a short poem, as her psychologist had suggested, even though she knew nothing about poetry and never read any. She chose haiku, five, seven, five. It seemed simple enough, plus short. Keeping the journal didn't fit the stereotype of the strong and worldly woman that she cultivated. But then again, nobody had to know about it except her.

Personal Journal

Rachel Shepard

20 January 2183

Joined my mind with an asari, an incredible experience. Alliance preparation literature doesn't do it justice. How to describe it? Time itself stopped. I could feel Liara's presence, her personality. Even parts of her mind that I don't think we have words for. There is more to people than just things like intellect or emotion. I'm more aware of that now than ever. It's easy to ignore parts of your own mind. But when you see it, feel it, touch it in another, it stands out in yourself. Now I know why Armali has so many words to describe mental faculties and states.

Liara slipped up at one point during the meld and brought us closer together than I think she meant to. It was... fascinating really, even if terrifying. For a brief instant, I felt like I knew exactly what it is like to be her. At least, I think I knew what it was like to be her. It's not as if I can recall her memories or anything. The fear waned as I could sense that she was... well... not threatening I guess would be good way to describe it? Honestly, I'm glad that she's so shy and private. It will make melding with her easier. I'm not sure that I would want to meld with an outgoing person. I'm pretty used to my mind being mine. An asari extrovert might be... aggressive, too open. We agreed to continue our sessions after lunch tomorrow. I'll have to tell her about her mother then. I'm not looking forward to that.

The doctor is an interesting character, incredibly dorky, but goodhearted. I know that now. Though I didn't even know that a few hours ago. It's strange, I can't say anything specific about her life or tastes or ideas. But I feel like I know her extremely well for somebody I met only today.

At least the two of us might make some progress with my vision. It's a bit of stress reliever to make progress on at least one front.

Oh, also, It's official, Kaidan is definitely flirting with me. I'm pretty sure I'm going to pursue him, or let him pursue me.

Liara is shy

I found her in a bubble

Now I've touched her mind


	5. A Time to Reveal

**A Time to Reveal**

> To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.  
>  -Ecclesiastes 3:1

~.~.~.~.~.~

"You let her into your mind! How do you know she didn't screw around while she was in there, mess your mind up somehow?" Ashley asked.

"Relax, Chief. Asari don't have _mind control_ powers," Shepard replied good-naturedly, looking up from her datapad.

"That we know of," the gunnery chief protested. "Not something they would be keen to advertise if they did."

"You're paranoid, Chief," Kaidan laughed, joining the conversation for the first time.

"I'd rather be paranoid than caught off guard," she replied.

Shepard took a sip of her coffee and mulled it over. The three humans were seated together consuming their breakfast at the mess.

"Well, look, Chief, you got a better lead on Saren that I can follow up?" Shepard finally asked Ash.

"No, ma'am. I'm not questioning your judgment. It's just... pretty gutsy if you ask me," Ashley replied.

"But no one's asking you," Wrex's voice bellowed out from behind them as he stepped forward and sat down at the table, perching his lumbering form awkwardly on the tiny, but fortunately sturdy human-sized chair.

"You've lived for a pretty long time, Wrex," Kaidan started when the krogan was finished seating himself. "You ever seen anything that would make you think asari have mind control powers?"

"Sure," he answered tersely. There was an awkward pause in the conversation before anybody realized that he had no intention of elaborating on that statement.

"You, have?" Shepard prompted, sounding concerned.

"At least where sex is involved... or the other thing," he said flatly.

"What other thing?" Kaidan asked confused, looking around the table at the other breakfasters for clarity.

"I think he means _love_ , LT." Ashley replied, coyly, shoveling a fork's load of egg substitute into her mouth as she winked at him.

"Is there a personal story here, Wrex?" Shepard finally teased.

"No story. Go talk to the quarian if you want stories."

Ashley swallowed her eggs. "What's the matter, Wrex? Touch a nerve?" She continued his teasing.

The krogan cast an evil eye at her, picked up his plate and slid the entirety of his breakfast into his mouth, downing it in a single gulp.

"You humans talk too much," he declared, as he stood up and walked away from the table.

"And eat too little," he mumbled as he walked away.

"I think you pissed him off," Kaidan said to Ashley when he was out of range.

"Not exactly hard to do," she replied defensively.

Shepard went back to reading her datapad as the table resumed eating in silence.

Before long, Garrus joined them, placing his plate of dextro nutrient paste down on the table at the place where Wrex had sat previously.

"That's pretty gross looking, Garrus," Ashley said, as he sat down, eying the translucent gelatin mountain that was slowly melting into a soupy paste on his plate.

"It tastes worse than it looks too," he stated flatly, taking his seat.

"We don't have any dextro supplies beyond the protein paste, sorry," Shepard said, without looking up from her datapad.

"I'm not complaining, Commander," Garrus was quick to respond. "Putting up with this slop is well worth it for the chance to work with a Spectre."

"You'll get used to it," Tali said cheerfully, joining them at the table. "I've been eating nothing but paste since I began my pilgrimage."

"Well, I do have a few dry-packed meals stored away for later. Might need them to keep from going mad," Garrus offered as his gaze fell across the room to where Liara was being served breakfast by the mess sergeant. Or, to be more precise, to where Liara was interrogating the hapless mess sergeant about the contents of the traditional human breakfast fare he was serving. By the shrug of the sergeant's shoulders it was clear that the man didn't know the answers to most of her questions, and the queue forming behind her seemed even less pleased than mess sergeant at the awkward asari's educational detour from the standard morning routine.

"Should she really be roaming the ship _free_ like that?" Garrus asked, his eyes flicking band and forth between Shepard and Liara, making his intentions clear.

Shepard looked up from the data pad and followed Garrus' gaze over to Liara who was now walking toward the table with her food. "She's harmless. And she doesn't have access to any restricted areas," Shepard replied.

"And we were just discussing the spell our Little Miss Prothean Expert has put on the commander here," Ashley said to him.

"Pardon?" Garrus asked.

"Ash is paranoid," Kaidan replied.

"Cautious," she corrected. "You should be cautious too. She could be competition for you."

"Competition for what?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes at him. "You heard what Wrex said, asari have _love_ magic," she mocked, laying particular emphasis the word _love_.

"Asari don't have love magic," he replied somewhat bitterly. "And besides, it would be none of my business if she did."

"Like hell it wouldn't," Ashley replied.

"Excuse me. May I join you?" Liara's soft voice interrupted the conversation, apparently oblivious to the topic of discussion.

"Sit down, Doc," Ashley offered.

Liara seated herself directly across from Shepard.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence in which everybody simply ate, Ashley turned toward Liara.

"So, Doc, Kaidan and I have a little disagreement that perhaps you could settle for us."

"Here we go." Kaidan rolled his eyes.

"I would be happy to help in anyway I can," Liara replied, cautious but enthusiastic.

"We were discussing the extent of your telepathic abilities," Ashley said.

"Then I am afraid you are mistaken; asari are not telepathic. No such ability exists, at least among known species. We asari can instinctively attune our nervous system to our partner's through biotics."

"Well, whatever you call it, it's damned impressive," Kaidan said earnestly.

"So... could you use this ability to put a thought or idea into someone else's mind? Make them believe it?" Ashley asked.

"I could send an idea to another individual's mind, but I could not compel that individual to believe it. They would have to determine if the idea was convincing or not on their own, after the meld was through."

"Now wait a minute," Shepard said, putting her datapad down. "Last night we were sharing feelings and even opinions during the meld."

Ashley shot a surreptitious look at Kaidan, which the man duly ignored.

"Yes. But after the meld, a person is left alone with their own thoughts, except, of course, during the union, where the two minds become intimately connected," Liara continued.

"The union?" Kaidan asked.

"The union... is how my species mates," Liara said to him, looking down and poking at her food uncomfortably.

"So you mean to tell me that all this sharing of thought and feeling doesn't influence the other person at all?" Ashley asked incredulously.

"No, it can have a profound effect on both participants. Often it will make people more sympathetic toward one another. But this is not through any type of coercion. It is often the result of experiencing the other person's perspective for yourself."

"Like walking a mile in the other guy's shoes," Kaidan offered.

"Exactly," Shepard added, nodding at him.

"What do you know about it, Commander?" Ashley came back.

"More than you do," she laughed, returning to her reading.

Ashley continued her questions. "What about all those stories about the legendary power of asari seduction?"

"Again, I am afraid that is little more than a rumor," Liara began, her tone quickly taking that of a friendly and enthusiastic though ultimately informative lecturer. "Asari produce pheromones similar to those that their bodies encounter in their local environments, wherever that may be. This results in the production of pheromones similar to those of other species when the asari lives in close proximity, however, this does not grant any kind of advantage that another member of such a species would not posses through their own pheromones. Nevertheless, this has led to some rather bigoted feelings toward asari from certain xenophobic members of many species... humanity included. And the confusion that can sometimes result when individuals who are unused to finding feminine characteristics appealing suddenly find themselves attracted to asari partners can be an additional source of tension. Unlike humanity, many species still carry taboos against sexual or romantic encounters between people of the same gender. Since asari characteristics are often considered feminine by many species' standards the capacity to inspire such feelings in both genders is sometimes resented or even feared."

"Humanity might not be as enlightened as you think, Doc," Kaidan said before turning and addressing the entire table. "Just a few days ago, when we were on the citadel, do you remember when we encountered that drunk guy in Chora's Den? The one who was yelling about how the asari were _stealing all of the human women._ "

"Don't remind me of that place," Ashley added.

"That is precisely the kind of attitude that I am referring to," Liara replied. "But asari do not have a the ability to 'bewitch' through pheromones, nor do we tend to have any sort of gender preference for the female of your species. Though these maters seems to be almost systemically misunderstood throughout the galaxy."

"You're basically blue lesbians in a lot of human media," Ashley said, taking a swig from her coffee.

"Sometimes I fear that we will never be understood by other races." Liara shook her head.

"Well I don't know about _bewitching_ ," Kaidan said. "But I've seen some guys fall pretty hard for asari, how do you account for that?"

"That may be due more to the nature of the union than to any type of physiological reaction to asari pheromones. It is a _profound_ experience for both participants," Liara said.

"How profound?" Ashley asked, her eyebrow raised.

Liara's initial reticence on the topic of sex seemed to have disappeared, replaced instead with a clinical detachment. "The union is a joining of two lives into one. It is often difficult to explain to nonasari as most languages do not have a vocabulary capable of communicating the degree of intimacy involved. This is not to suggest, however, that casual liaisons do not also occur. It is just that they are usually left purely physical, without any joining of minds."

"So is there someone special in _your_ life, Liara?" Tali asked, joining the conversation at last.

"I am afraid not," Liara quickly replied, blushing somewhat. "I am only one hundred and six, and I have spent most of my life on remote dig sites."

"Damn!" Ashley exclaimed. "I hope I look half that good when I'm your age."

"One hundred and six may _seem_ like a long time to a short-lived species such as yourself, but I am barely considered to be an adult by asari standards. Between my studies and excavation work, I have not found time for romantic partners."

"None?" Ashley asked, her eyebrows raised even further than before.

"None." Liara confirmed, her cheeks flushing purple.

"One hundred and six years of virginity... You know, Doc..." Ashley began mischievously, "there's a little ritual we do in the Alliance with new recruits who are still virgins."

"She's lucky she's not in the Alliance then," Shepard said sternly, without looking up from her datapad.

"Ah, you're no fun, Commander," Ashley replied playful.

"I don't think you're going to convince her to share her mind with some prostitute anyway," Shepard said.

"You never know, sometimes the quiet ones are the wildest," Ashley said.

Kaidan looked over at Liara who was blushing intensely, her head down, her gaze practically buried in her plate.

"I'm officially voting that we change the subject away from asari sex," he said.

"Second," Shepard said.

"I'll agree to that," Garrus added.

"Me too," Tali agreed sympathetically.

"Looks like you're outnumbered, Chief," Shepard said.

"You're _all_ no fun," she laughed.

"So what are you reading there, Commander?" Garrus asked, by way of changing subjects.

"Alliance intelligence reports. Possible geth sightings. There are way too many to be coincidence. It seems like the geth must be on the move."

"The whole Traverse is pretty shook up after Eden Prime," Kaidan said. "I bet people are seeing geth everywhere, behind every unidentified radar ping,"

"Yeah it's a mess... pretty hard to sort out," Shepard agreed.

"I have some experience identifying false positives in my scientific work, Commander. Perhaps I could help you filter the signal from the noise," Liara offered.

"Thanks, but the Alliance VIs do that already, this mess is what's left over after the filtering," Shepard replied, waving her datapad around.

"Well, I have experience writing predictive algorithms for tracking geth movements," Tali said. "Maybe Liara and I could come up with something that would do better than the Alliance VIs."

Shepard thought about that for a moment. "I'm willing to give it a shot if you two want to put something together," she said "But I'm not giving either of you access to Alliance intel streams unless _I'm_ present."

"Of course, Commander," Liara said, her face lighting up, "We will work out as much as we can before calling you in for a beta test."

Tali and Liara both stood up from the table in unison and instantly began conversing energetically about their new project as they walked away together, leaving Liara's half-eaten plate behind.

"What algorithm did you use in your information processing work to filter out false positives?" Liara's excited voice could be heard above the noise of the mess. "At university we applied a number of adaptive heuristics pioneered by the salarian cyberneticist Dr. Stish Kressett..."

The two of them disappeared into the elevator.

"Well, looks like they're going to be fast friends," Kaidan remarked.

"I might have just created a monster," Shepard said, smiling at him.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Dr. T'Soni?" Shepard's voice broke the silence of the supply closet that served as Liara's private quarters. Liara was seated on a crate of medical supplies tucked into the far corner, punching diligently away at her omnitool while Tali sat working at the computer console where Shepard had presumed to find Liara. Hunched over the workstation, her back turned on the rest of the room, Tali didn't even acknowledge the commander's voice.

"Commander?" Liara looked up from her omintool.

"How's the work on the algorithm coming?" Shepard asked, stepping into the room, the door hissing to a close behind her.

"Well, I believe," Liara said cheerfully, standing up. "Tali is a remarkably talented programmer." She smiled over at the back of Tali's head.

"And I bet you two have been working on it all morning," Shepard said, looking over at the back of Tali's purple envirosuit and mimicking Liara's approving smile.

"Yes," Liara confirmed. "Or at least, Tali has. I am merely helping her in any capacity I can. I almost forgot about our appointment... Tali?" She said, laying her hand on Tali's shoulder to grab the distracted quarian's attention. "The Commander and I have scheduled this time to explore her vision. I am sorry to have to leave you. Please feel free to make continued use of my computer station."

"Huh? Oh... yeah... no problem," Tali said, half distracted, her head never turning from the screen. "I'll see you when you get back."

"Do you want to go to my quarters then, if Tali's gonna be here?" Shepard suggested.

Liara nodded. "That sounds good."

The two walked the ship together in relative silence, finding little to say to one another on their way to Shepard's quarters, but, when the door to her quarters opened, it was Shepard who broke the silence first. "Hey, I just thought of something," she explained as she went over to her dresser and pulled out the trinket she had received from the consort. Liara stood awkwardly in the center of the room, her head swiveling around almost mechanically, scanning and examining the décor of the commander's quarters, or the distinct lack thereof, as she noted the fact of the room's relative barrenness to herself.

Shepard closed the distance to Liara in a few quick strides, presenting the trinket to the still distracted asari with a casualness that Liara found herself unable to match regarding the artifact. "I was using this to help focus my mind on the vision before we met. Do you have any idea what it is?" Shepard asked.

"This quite beautiful," Liara exclaimed enthusiastically, carefully taking the trinket from Shepard and turning it over in her hands. "It is most certainly Prothean, though I have never seen such an item before. I would guess it is late period, perhaps seventh or eight age. How did you come into possession of this?" She finally asked, her eyes never leaving the object.

"The Consort, Sha'ira, gave it to me," Shepard informed her.

"You _know_ the Consort?" Liara asked, sounding almost starstruck. "But I thought you said that you had never... with an asari I mean… and that you were..."

"I've never been to visit her in _that_ capacity," Shepard said, laughing. "I did a favor for her once, _this_ was her thanks." She walked back over to the dresser she had retrieved the artifact from and leaned up against the flat surface of its top, crossing her arms across her chest.

"This is a remarkably generous gift. I almost feel as if I should urge to you donate it to an academic department... due to its singularity," Liara said, continuing to turn the object over this way and that in her hands.

"Well would _you_ like to look it over for a while? I suspect you'll be with us on the _Normandy_ for a quite a while. Should give you plenty of time," Shepard offered.

"I do not have the facilities to properly study it here, but I suppose that I could at least catalog it with a holo recorder. You say that it helped you to focus your mind on the vision?" Liara asked, looking up for a moment, her eyes fixing on Shepard.

"I think it did, but maybe I was fooling myself." Shepard reached over and pushed the dresser's drawer shut without getting up.

"Perhaps it is meant to be used a meditation enhancer, or perhaps your mind somehow subliminally grasped that it was Prothean," Liara offered.

"Hmm," Shepard grunted considering the possibilities briefly. "Well, whatever the case, I hope you can make better use of it than I have. I was getting nowhere with the vision without you."

"Thank you… again," Liara said, carefully wrapping the trinket in some medical gauze that she produced from one of her pockets. "This is most kind. I shall catalog this as soon as Tali and I finish work on her algorithm."

"No rush," Shepard said.

An awkward silence took hold in the room as Liara finished embalming the well-worn trinket in what, to Shepard, looked like a veritable burial shroud of gauze wrappings. She slipped the little mummified shard of what had previously seemed like living history ever so respectfully into the sarcophagus of her shirt pocket and looked up in solemn silence. The moment that they both had been anticipating with some trepidation was approaching.

Liara was the first to speak. "Shepard… about my mother," she began. Shepard had promised Liara that she would explain the situation concerning Benezia to her during this, their noon meeting.

Shepard sighed, recrossing her arms and casting Liara a sympathetic look.

"I'm guessing I don't know much more than you've probably already figured out," Shepard began. "There's indisputable proof that your mother is working with Saren."

Liara frowned. "Perhaps you will think me naïve, but I still hold out hope that she is merely undercover somehow," Liara said, diverting her eyes.

"I don't know, maybe she is," Shepard said, trying to comfort her, though not really believing it herself. The look of pain in Liara's face sent sympathetic pangs resonating through her. She cut a tragic looking figure, a downcast and sullen woman, young, trying to be stoic, and standing still and all alone in the middle of her quarters. "How did you two... I mean... You haven't spoken in years?" Shepard finally spat out.

"Mother disapproved of my vocational choice," Liara explained, looking up again.

"She disapproved of you becoming a scientist? That's something most parents would be proud of," Shepard said incredulously.

"You do not understand. Matriarchs in asari society are highly respected leaders. Although capable of bearing children, very few asari who have entered the matriarch stage choose to do so. When an asari does produce offspring in her matriarch stage, much is expected of her child." Liara hung her gaze low. "She is not expected to go digging around in the dirt."

"What _did_ they expect you to do then?" Shepard asked.

"To follow in her footsteps. Even in their maiden years, it is expected that children of matriarchs will be preparing themselves to be great leaders or politicians...businesswomen at the least. Mother... Benezia, dedicated her whole life to guiding the future, _our_ future... and I chose to dig up the past." She hung her head.

"Well, all children rebel against their parents. It's a natural part of growing up," Shepard consoled her.

Liara smiled brightly, looking up. "You share the wisdom of the Matriarch, Shepard. That is exactly what she said to me when I told her of my decision to study archeology. She also told me that when I was ready, she would welcome me back home..." Liara turned away from Shepard and began to pace the room in thought. "I resented the implicit assumption involved in her statement, that my love of Prothean archeology was merely a childish phase, something I would inevitably out grow. We didn't speak again. I suppose that is one of the disadvantages to having such a long lifespan. It always seems like there will be ample time to reconcile later." Her bright smiled had completely faded, replaced by a downtrodden expression, as she stared at the collection of holopictures on Sheppard's nightstand, an assortment of mostly vacation stills, Shepard alone in front of one landmark or another. There were no obvious family or friends in any of them. "Now, that may never happen... What of your parents, Shepard? Do you stay on good terms with them?" She asked, turning around to face Shepard.

"My parents passed away years ago," Shepard replied flatly.

"Oh! I am so sorry," Liara said sympathetically.

"Everyone says that..." Shepard said. _But I've never heard someone sound so much like they really mean it,_ she thought. "It's not important anyway though. Ancient history."

"That is the best kind of history." Liara smiled at her hesitantly, unsure of the appropriateness of her wit, but to her comfort, Shepard returned the smile.

"I guess the difference between us is that I like to keep the past buried," Shepard said.

"That is a difficult perspective for me to understand," Liara replied.

"Well, I guess that the past just feels... safer... there." The words shocked her the moment they had escaped from her lips. Had she really just said something so personal, so vulnerable to Liara? "And besides, what's done is done," she added hastily in a tone that sounded simultaneously uncomfortable and dismissive.

"That is true... and tautological," Liara confirmed.

"What I'm saying is that the past wouldn't have become the past if it wanted to stay the present," Shepard tried to explain.

"What?" Liara asked, utterly confused by Shepard's meaningless statement.

"It's like destiny, you know... what's meant to be will be." When Liara still seemed to miss her point Shepard cleared her throat and began reciting, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal." Liara listened patiently. "A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak."

"You are fan of poetry," Liara stated approvingly, when Shepard had finished reciting the entirety of the passage.

"Ha ha. Me? No. That's scripture," Shepard told her.

"Then you are devout," she stated.

"No, not exactly. My parents were devout New Baptists though. I had to memorize a lot of scripture when I was a kid," Shepard explained.

"I do not know much about human religions, other than that you have a bewildering array of them. Are they all so... fatalistic?" Liara asked, walking back to the center of the room.

"I guess. It makes people comfortable to think that there is something else out there, guiding them."

"It seems dreadful to me." Liara shook her head. "Not to be the master of your own fate."

"Maybe it's different for asari. Us humans are pretty much going to live our whole lives alone, in our heads. To imagine that there is a supernatural being watching over us... can make that loneliness a little more bearable... if it's true." She shrugged at Liara.

"Do your mates not alleviate your loneliness?" Liara asked with sympathy.

"Sure, but even then you can never really know what the other person is thinking, hiding," Shepard said. "Is anybody ever _really_ a hundred percent open with another person?"

"I suppose asari don't really have that problem." Liara became thoughtful.

"Trust me then, you're lucky," Shepard replied with conviction and exasperation.

"Well, we do still face the problem of choosing a mate in the first place," Liara said.

"Ha! Don't we all?" Shepard laughed forcefully.

Liara smiled. "And, you have chosen Kaidan?" She asked.

"You understand humans better than you think, Doctor," Shepard said approvingly. "Yeah, I'm interested in him."

"My perspicuity cannot take the credit for this revelation. It was Chief Williams that suggested as much to me. She told me that you would soon be... _taken_ , I believe the word was."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Leave it to her... She's afraid that I'm gonna run off with you," she finally explained to the clearly bewildered Liara.

"With me?!" Liara exclaimed.

"I know, silly, right? She doesn't understand that we're just good friends."

"Good friends..." Liara said the words as if turning them over in her mind. "Yes, I suppose we are. Though we just met yesterday."

"What can I say? I make friends easily," Shepard boasted, throwing her arms wide in an exaggerated gesture, though Liara had noted that there were no friends to be seen in any of the pictures on her nightstand.

"If I may propose an alternative hypotheses, I think it may have more to do with the length and duration with which we have now shared the meld," she responded almost clinically. "What we are doing is... unusual. Asari may exchange memories with one another, but the encounter is usually brief, and not likely to be repeated. So what is the next stage in your courtship ritual with Kaidan? How do you continue to pursue him?" She asked.

"It's sort of... how do I explain this? It's more traditional for _him_ to make the next move at this point. Usually we talk about the male _pursuing_ the female... We often use more passive vocabulary to describe the woman's role. A woman might be said to have _lured him in_ rather than _pursued_ him. But that's sexist BS, really!" Liara seemed to be very interested by Shepard's impromptu lecture on human mating customs, and her enthusiasm prompted Shepard to continue. "There are several things that I can do to try to spur him to action if I want to... to show that I'm interested. And that will give him confidence. But there's nothing stopping me from just flat-out telling him I'm interested either, though it rarely goes down that way. I'd rather wait and see... see what it takes for him to step out of his comfort zone and make a move. You can't go too easy on 'em, you know?" But Liara looked as if she had no idea. "You want to come off as someone worthy of being pursued. It's common for both sexes to feign a bit of disinterest in the beginning. It's a stupid game, but that's how it's played."

"Gender dichotomies can be very confusing," Liara declared, shaking her head. "I do not know _how_ you manage to keep track of them. So it is the burden of the male to risk the public perception of his fitness by explicitly expressing his desire to mate?"

"I've never heard it described so... clinically before, but yeah, generally a guy is supposed to show that he has self-confidence. It's a big turn off if he acts all shy and goofy. Though I admit, I despise that macho shit routine that some guys try."

"So being shy is not a desirable trait for humans?" Liara asked timidly.

"Well, no, I take that back, shy can honestly be kinda cute sometimes," Shepard conceded. "You know, he's got that look in his eyes that says that he has a burning fire in his soul that he'll only share with you... if you can only crack open the hard nut of his shy exterior. Not all women fall for arrogant jerks. That's an ugly stereotype."

"Are all human endeavors so... self-contradictory?" Liara asked, befuddled. "You say that you do not like the so-called 'macho' behavior, but you do like confidence... and yet you claim to find shyness an attractive quality too."

"Ha ha. Yeah, I guess we are a mess, aren't we?"

"You are certainly more intriguing than I had ever guessed," Liara said. "And not just as species, but you in particular, Commander," she clarified.

"Me?" Shepard asked incredulously.

"Your mind has been touched by actual, working Prothean technology," Liara explained. "You would make an excellent specimen for a case study," she said wistfully.

"A specimen for a case study? It sounds like you want to dissect me in a lab."

" _What_? No!" Liara vehemently denied, her voice raised quite loud.

"Relax, Liara. I was only joking," Shepard said, uncrossing her arms and raising her open palm in the universal "calm down" gesture.

"Oh, by the goddess," Liara said, placing her hand to her forehead. "You must think me a complete and utter fool. Now you see why I prefer the solitude of a dig site." Her cheeks flushed violet.

"You just haven't had a lot of practice interacting with people," Shepard said. "Maybe the next time we're at dock you can take a night off with Ashley and me, get some practice."

"I am afraid that you would likely find me to be a burden," Liara said awkwardly, looking for a way out. "You work so hard here on the ship. I would hate to ruin your evening off."

"Ah c'mon... don't be like that," Shepard protested, standing up from her dresser and walking toward Liara.

"Well... Very well, if you insist," Liara relented.

"I do. It'll be fun."

"Well, it's a date then." Liara smiled. "Shall we get down to business?"

Shepard nodded in the affirmative, stepping even closer and closing her eyes.

"Relax, Commander," Liara began, cupping the side of Shepard's face. Shepard steeled herself. "Open your mind to the pregnant void, a sea of infinite possibilities, woven together in the dark. Reach out and grasp the hidden strands that bind us, the secret chains that have led to this moment. We have always orchestrated those threads, woven the pattern of our destiny. We are the hidden source of all our consequences. Reveal that source. Bear yourself to the void. Embrace eternity!"

Shepard felt Liara flowing into her. Her presence, her acumen, her countenance, her personality, her intellect, her bearing... all that could be said to be her being. As she welcomed the asari into herself a single fleeting thought crossed her mind. For the first time that she could recall, she felt as if she wasn't truly alone.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Navigator Pressly was looking down his nose at the two aliens standing next to the galaxy map on the _Normandy's_ CIC. Tali and Liara had finished punching in the last of the display commands, synching the results from their data sorting algorithm to the _Normandy's_ galaxy map.

"Well?" Shepard asked impatiently when they had finished.

"It looks like the geth are up to something in either the Armstrong Nebula or the Attican Beta cluster," Tali said, highlighting both clusters on the map.

"The signal is much stronger in the Armstrong Nebula," Liara added.

"Any idea what they might be doing in either of those clusters?" Shepard asked.

"There doesn't seem to be much of interest in the Armstrong Nebula," Tali said, thinking out loud.

"That we know of," Liara added. "But I have a thought. Feros is in the Attican Beta cluster."

"Feros? Never heard of it," Shepard said as Navigator Pressly walked around the holo display and disabled several of the readouts nearest to Tali.

"Its main feature is the Prothean ruins that cover two thirds of its surface. Majestic towers, the remains of a sprawling megalopolis," Liara became animated and began waxing noticeably romantic. "Remarkably intact after all these years. A _true_ testament to Prothean engineering. A series of aqueducts still function to carry meltwater from the north to the urban reservoirs along the equatorial band. The ruins, however, have long been picked clean by scavengers, nothing of value remains. At least, that is what the academic community believes. But perhaps Saren knows something we do not."

"Maybe there's something there that hasn't been discovered yet," Shepard said. "Something like the Conduit."

"Still, the signal _is_ stronger in Armstrong Nebula," Tali said, as Pressly returned to the far side of the holo display.

"Ignore the algorithm," Liara said. "It cannot take intuition into account. It does not add any weight or significance to the presence of the ruins."

"The algorithm merely correlates reports and predicts movements," Tali explained.

" _Two thirds_ of Feros is covered in the ruins of the ancient megalopolis," Liara stressed. "And the ground is choked by several meters of debris from the crumbling towers. It is entirely conceivable that a find of great importance has been overlooked amongst the rubble."

"It couldn't hurt to set course for Feros." Shepard said. "We don't have any other leads at the moment. We can at least check it out. Good work, you two."

"Tali deserves most of the credit, Commander." Liara said.

"That's not fair, you introduced me to several new algorithms that I was unfamiliar with," Tali said.

"They are quite common among scientists, really. Nothing remarkable," Liara said dismissively.

"OK, enough with the self-deprecating routine," Shepard said. "Both of you, good work."

"Thank you, Commander," Liara said. Tali nodded in agreement.

"Pressly, chart us a course to Feros," Shepard ordered.

"Aye, aye, Commander," came his nasally reply. "ETA will be..." He punched some buttons on the console in front of him. "...approximately eight hours fifty minutes."

"I'm gonna get some shut-eye," Shepard informed no one in particular. "We still on for tomorrow morning?" She asked Liara.

"I will meet you at your cabin at 0500," Liara confirmed.

"I'll meet _you_ in the supply room at 0600," Shepard countered.

"I will be ready," She said cheerfully.

~.~.~.~.~.~

_Knock, knock, knock._ The thumping of the d'erie bird's mating call became louder. _Knock, knock, knock._ She turned over the small trinket-like artifact in her little, blue hands. Definitely Prothean! But unlike anything she had read about. _I have to show Mother!_ She thought. She just couldn't _wait_ to prove her mother so delightfully wrong about finding Prothean artifacts in the park. Turning around she scanned for the bench where her mother had earlier sat herself down with her notes to work. Instead, she found nothing but wilderness surrounding her in every direction.

"Mother!" She called out. "Where are you?"

She must have wandered further from the trail than she had intended. Perhaps she should have listened to her mother when the always-wise matriarch had warned her not run off in search of her silly Protheans. But it was too late now. Now she was lost and alone.

"Mother!" she called again, but there was no response aside from the d'erie bird's loud mating call, quite loud, in fact. What had become of her mother? _Knock, knock, knock._ No wait, this was no d'erie bird. She turned over. She was lying in a cot...

"hmmf," a groan escaped her lips. A cot... on board the human starship!

"Oh, Goddess."

"Liara?" Shepard's muffled voice came through the door.

"One moment!" She called back.

Was it 0600 already? Were these humans using Armali Standard Time? She had just assumed that they would be synched to the Citadel. She pawed around on the floor for her garments.

"Should I come back?" Shepard asked.

"No, no! Just give me a few seconds," she called back.

A quick check of her omni informed her that it was 0634 AST.

"Okay, no rush." But Shepard sounded as if she didn't _really_ mean the "no rush" part.

When Liara had finally slipped on her clothes she stole a quick glance in the small mirror on her desk, actually a piece of ancient medical equipment from Dr. Chakwas' personal odds and ends. It was a device that humans had used before interactive screens had become the norm, and which Dr. Chakwas had thoughtfully let her borrow, trusting the careful archeologist to keep the little bit of history safe.

She peered into the reflective coating of the little magnifying dish to see if everything was in proper order and frowned to see that it was not. Her face still showed all the signs of sleep, puffy eyes, pillow marks across her cheeks. She sighed. There was nothing she could do about it now, and she resigned herself to opening the door in her unkempt state. She hadn't used a mirror, or cared a single jot about her looks for that matter, since... Goddess, how long? Well at least since she had set foot on Therum.

_Odd that I would slip back into the habit so easily,_ she thought as she walked over to the door, still surprised at how much she was bothered by her disheveled appearance. She punched the buttons of the locking mechanism causing the door to slide open, revealing the pink-skinned, black-haired visage of a rather bored looking Command Shepard.

"Sleep in, Doctor?" Shepard asked, poking her head into the closet that served as Liara's quarters.

"Yes, I am sorry. I suppose I was more tired than I realized," Liara apologized as Shepard strolled into the room.

"You look like you slept hard," she said, gesturing to the lines of sleep on Liara's face. "You know, you'll mess your neck up if you keep sleeping on your stomach," she added, offhandedly, looking casually around at the disorderly mess of the room.

"What would you have me sleep on?" Liara asked, turning around and kneeling to straighten out the blankets of her cot.

"Your back," Shepard stated matter-of-factly, pacing around the room, looking this way and that as Liara tidied up.

"That position would be most uncomfortable. I can only rest on my crest for short periods before it starts to pinch," Liara informed her.

"Oh yeah, that makes sense. I guess I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about for asari."

"Thank you for your concern, anyway," Liara said, walking over to her desk and picking up the trinket that Shepard had given her yesterday. "I have finished cataloging this," she said flatly, handing the trinket back to Shepard.

"When did you find time for that?" Shepard asked, pleasantly surprised.

"After our meeting last night on the bridge. I began as soon as I returned here, to my quarters."

"Well no wonder, you were still asleep then! This could have waited. The past isn't going anywhere you know," Shepard laughed, admonishing her.

"Not true," Liara informed her. "The past is slowly disappearing... all around us. Whatever we do not document, catalog, pin down... all will eventually be lost in time."

"I guess..." Shepard shrugged. "Ashes to ashes, anyway."

"You take such a blasé attitude toward it," Liara said, amazed and just a bit exasperated at Shepard's nonchalance.

"All things pass," Shepard intoned, tucking the rare artifact away into the pockets of her uniform.

"You take great comfort in the sayings of your New Baptist faith, don't you?" Liara asked her.

"I'm not New Baptist," Shepard said, showing the palm of her hand to Liara and shaking her head. "Mom and Dad were. _All things pass_ is more of a Hindu idea, anyway."

"Then you do not follow your parent's religion?"

"Nope, I don't really know what I believe. What about you? Do you follow your parent's religion?" She asked.

"Benezia is Siarist... but... no. There are many beautiful sentiments in Siari, but I must be honest to the principles of scientific inquiry and question some of the tenets for which there is no evidence."

Shepard sat down on the edge of Liara's desk. "I guess that's the real problem, right? No evidence for any of it. That's why all religions are so big on faith."

"I suppose so," Liara agreed. "But a private revelation is only evidence for the individual to which the revelation was given." She fluffed her pillow and placed it at the head of the cot.

"I'm still waiting on my revelation. God's a little late," Shepard said lightheartedly.

"She's a little late for me too." Liara smiled.

" _She_ , I like that," Shepard exclaimed. "Don't hear _her_ referred to by the female pronoun in many human religions."

"Yes," Liara said enthusiastically, turning to face the commander and crossing her arms. "I understand that that is a legacy from your ancient past, when men were considered to be a dominant class."

"Yeah, _ancient_ ," Shepard said sarcastically. "As in your mother was born when women were still property of their husbands... God, your mother was born before... before we invented calculus even."

"The youth of your race is often hard to fathom, but you advance so quickly. There is a burning passion in you," Liara responded.

"It sounds like you like us then!" Shepard grinned wide and friendly at her.

"I am... impressed by what I have seen here," Liara confirmed.

"Well, you've only known us for a few days. We have plenty more tricks up our sleeves."

"I have no idea why you would choose to store _tricks_ in the sleeves of your garments, but I trust you are indeed right," Liara smiled back at her.

"You know, I think you've come out of your shell a little already. You're certainly smiling a lot more. All this human contact has been good for you."

Liara thought about this for a moment. Come to think of it, she had smiled more times in the past few days than she had in the previous months.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Liara sat at her desk pawing through archival images of Prothean ruins which were arrayed across the haptic holographic interface of her computer system while Shepard sat on a crate behind her, staring at the floor, apparently deep in thought.

"Why does the name _Cestus_ sound familiar?" She finally asked Liara.

"I had thought one of the images from the beacon reminded me of some holos I had seen of the ruins on Cestus, apparently a remote Prothean outpost world, thought to have been abandoned long before the extinction event. But I can't seem to find any photo that looks familiar now." She sighed, closing the images of Cestus and lowering her head. "Perhaps I am mistaken," she said, frustrated. But after a few seconds of staring at her desk she returned her attention to the terminal and opened a new set of images.

She had just broken her third mental link of the morning's session several minutes earlier, and with the memories of Commander Shepard's vision still fresh in her mind, she was trying desperately to pin any kind of concrete place name on any of of the images. How many ruins have third age spires modified with fifth age jade work? Cestus, of course, the archetypal example, but also, Jarah-hadah, and Ophrem... Oh! And even Trienta has the famous courtyard of the mountain! She was beginning to lose herself in the imagery of the vision when Joker's unsteady voice broke through the comm, pulling her back to the present.

"Ah, Commander?"

"What is it, Joker?" Shepard asked in return.

"We've arrived at Feros. Looks like you were right about the geth. They're here alright," he said.

"Have they seen us?" Shepard asked standing up from her perch on the container and snapping to attention.

"Negative, Commander. We're running silent."

"I'm on my way up. Get Alliance Command on the horn."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Looks like you were right about Feros," Shepard said, turning to Liara.

"You will being going down there, will you not?" Liara asked.

"Probably, yeah, we need to figure out what the geth are doing here," Shepard said, turning and walking out of the medbay supply room.

"I would like to come with," Liara said, standing up and following the Commander out the door.

"Groundside? It's gotta be a war zone down there!" She said, casting a look back at Liara as she marched through the empty medbay.

"I can handle myself," Liara insisted, catching up to Shepard.

The two of them exited the medbay.

"No offense, Liara..." Shepard began to protest.

"If the geth are looking for Prothean artifacts..." Liara cut her off.

"It's too dangerous for a civilian," Shepard stated.

"I have trained with asari commandos," Liara announced as Shepard stopped in front of the main lift and pressed the call button.

" _You have_?" Shepard asked, shocked at this revelation.

"My mother's commandos, yes. It was part of my biotic training. I can handle myself quite well in combat. My studies have afforded me several opportunities to test my skills against pirates and scavengers."

The doors opened.

"A geth army isn't pirates and scavengers," Shepard said, stepping into the elevator.

"You may need me. You may need a Prothean expert to identify what the geth are looking for," Liara said following her in.

"What I need is a _living_ Prothean expert, in case we _don't_ find what we're looking for down there."

"Commander, do you trust me?"

"I think we've been over this. I've seen your mind. I don't think you're working for Saren."

The doors closed.

"Then let me show you the extent of my training."

"You're dead set on this," Shepard stated. "Why?"

"My mother is involved, my research is involved... and now I am involved too, as the two of us try to understand your vision together. You do not seem to realize this, but your mission now concerns me... at least as much as it concerns Tali or Garrus or Wrex. What justification do you ask from them?"

"That's different. They have combat training."

"As do I, that is my point."

"Fine. Show me," Shepard conceded somewhat angrily.

Liara eyes flashed black as she reached out for the Commander. "Embrace eternity."

Shepard's mind slipped easily into the meld, despite the rapidity of it, with none of the sense of disorientation or confusion that had accompanied her initial forays into a state of joined mind with Liara.

"OK, you have combat training, at least as much as Tali," She agreed as Liara's life memories of her time spent with her mother's commandos filled Shepard's mind.

"And you let her join your ground crew."

"I needed a geth expert, and, frankly, I'm surprised how well she handled herself in combat. The migrant fleet marines must be a hell of a fighting force."

"You need a Prothean expert too... Saren's geth are seeking the Conduit, a Prothean invention."

"Which you don't even know what it is!" Shepard raised her voice.

The elevator doors opened back onto the crew deck revealing Kaidan Alenko. In their argument, neither one of them had remembered to press the button for the CIC.

"Am I interrupting something?" He asked, surprised to see the two women just standing in the stationary elevator, Liara's hands still cupping Shepard's face.

"No," was Shepard's curt reply as she punched the button for the CIC. Liara's hands flew from Shepard's face and came to rest awkwardly behind her back as she took a step backward, away from the commander. The doors closed again and elevator began to move.

"OK," Shepard conceded. "You have experience working with commandos. Welcome to the squad."

"Thank you, Commander. You will not regret this."

The doors opened onto the CIC.

"Just see to it that I don't. No heroics, no trying to prove yourself. We're a squad," Shepard said as she stepped out of the elevator.

"Please, Commander. You do not have to lecture me. I know how to handle myself with commandos," Liara replied as the doors shut on her.

"Dr. Chakwas will have my head," Shepard muttered to herself.

"Joker you got the Alliance on the line?" Shepard asked into her comm.

"Admiral Hackett, ma'am."

Shepard quickly reviewed her omnitool display as she walked into the comm room, a summery of all of the information that the tactical officer had gathered and organized about the geth since the _Normandy's_ arrival in the system.

Admiral Hackett's hologram jumped to life in front of her as she activated the display. His head snapped up from the datapad he was reviewing.

"Report, Commander."

"The situation is serious, sir. The geth are engaged in military action against civilians on Feros."

"Damn. This was a complete surprise. I'm having central run a double check, but so far we haven't received any distress calls from anywhere in the Attican Beta cluster, it's damn strange," Hackett said. "My attaché tells me there's an ExoGeni colony down there, but if they've failed to check in, ExoGeni hasn't bothered to inform _us_ of that fact." Angrily, he threw the datapad he was holding down hard onto a table just outside the projection image.

"I think we may have caught them early, sir," Shepard offered.

"We're going to mobilize a response immediately. What have you ascertained about their numbers?"

"Very little. We'll be hitting the ground soon. Should give us a better idea of what we're up against."

"Negative, Commander," Hackett said. "You're not to engage an enemy of unknown strength. You can join up with the fleet when they arrive."

"I'm sorry, Admiral, but that could be hours, and we have no idea how long the geth have been here already. I'm going groundside... on Council authority."

Hackett shook his head.

"The _Normandy_ is on loan to the Citadel, and I have no say in what you choose to do as a Spectre, but Shepard... do me a personal favor and don't do something reckless. They may have pinned a medal to your chest, but we both know what you did on Elysium was stupid. You were lucky to survive those odds once, don't make a habit of it."

"We'll keep our heads down, sir," she replied.

"I'd hate to loose you, Commander."

She nodded.

"Keep us posted as best you can," he added.

"I will. We're running silent right now. All communications are tight-beamed to the buoy. I'll give our comm officer discretion to send you anything he can when he deems there to be a clear broadcast window that won't give us away."

"Be safe, Commander. Help is on the way. Hackett out."

She walked back into the CIC and made for the bow of the ship, a million scenarios playing out in her mind based on just the limited a data she had gleaned from her omni. The geth were mostly planet side. Their activity centered around the ExoGeni headquarters. The _Normandy_ could come in silent, they'd never know it was there, provided they entered atmo slowly enough. But the Tantalus core would have to project a mass effect field for the _Normandy_ to fall into if they were to avoid using heat emitting thrusters... inside the gravity well of the planet, that could make piloting tricky, having two competing gravitational sources attracting the _Normandy_. But Joker could handle it. And if they did have to use thrusters they could always guide the exhaust away from any geth ships... well, maybe. That could prove tricky too, depending on the geth patrol routes. And they might still pick up radiation from the heat transferred to the surrounding atmosphere. Her musings came to a stop as she entered the cockpit.

"Joker, you found a suitable drop zone for the mako?" She asked, laying her hand on the back of his headrest and looking out the window at the planet below them.

"Better. There's a spaceport a few klicks from the main ExoGeni site, large enough to land the _Normandy_ too," he cheerfully reported.

"Any risk of being spotted by the geth?"

"Not with her stealth systems engaged," he replied, proudly.

"Can you guide us through the atmosphere without thrusters?"

"Please, Commander, there's a reason why they tapped me for this ship."

"Alright, hotshot. Bring us in then, Mr. Moreau," she said, slapping the back of his chair and taking a seat next to him.

"All hands, prepare ship for atmospheric descent," Joker spoke into the comm.

Shepard stayed seated next to Joker, reviewing all of the telemetry that the Normandy's passive sensors could acquire about the geth on and around Feros, for the duration of the ship's slow decent through the atmosphere.

"Damn, that's quite a view," she said, looking up as they broke through the wispy strands of the cirrus clouds. revealing the towering spires of ancient Prothean skyscrapers peaking through the stratocumulus layer below them. The forest of alien spires was so vast that it stretched on to the horizon as far as her eyes could see.

"Where the hell did the colonists find room to settle in all of that?" She asked.

"They're in one of the towers," Joker explained. "Repurposed it."

"That's human ingenuity for you, I guess."

"Ah shit," Joker exclaimed suddenly. "There's a geth ship right at our landing coordinates."

"Just one?" Shepard asked, turning to the side as she brought up the _Normandy's_ sensor display on a nearby terminal."

"Just one," Joker confirmed," It looks like a troop transport of some kind... no back up nearby but it's raining geth down onto the colony."

"They're gonna get slaughtered," Shepard hissed under her breath. "Damn, I wanted stay incognito, but they just forced our hand. Blow it out of the sky, Joker, buy them a little time."

"Roger that, ma'am."

"Just be prepared to bug out when reinforcements show up."

Three volleys of dual mass accelerator slugs traced twin arching paths out from the _Normandy_ in rapid succession, painting a series of bright white lines of excited atmosphere in front of them. The lines reached out in an arcing path from _Normandy_ to the geth transport, terminating in great fiery balls that erupted from the surface of the geth ship. The silhouette of the transport, which looked vaguely insectile to Shepard, began to break apart as the glow of heated air quickly faded and the lines vanished.

"You don't have the auditory emulators online?" Shepard asked.

"That's not the default for in atmo," Joker replied. "Air particles cause too much noise, screw with the software's ability to react properly. You can get some strange results if you leave them on."

The remnants of the geth ship began to sink under the effects of gravity as its mass effect field dissipated, the largest piece narrowly missing the roof of the tower and ultimately plummeting down past the lower cloud layer into the abyss below.

"We just kick a hornet's nest?" Shepard asked.

"I... I don't see any movement at all from any of the other geth ships," Joker said tentatively. "It's like they don't even care... The closest is about seven minutes out from the colony," he added.

"What are they doing?" She asked under her breath, scanning the horizon with her eyes.

"Beats me, Commander. But they seem to be focused on another tower, several kilometers away from the landing site. ExoGeni is headquartered there... _was_ headquartered there."

"OK, take us in to the original landing zone, but retain full liftoff readiness. We may have to bug out quickly."

"If they have newer generation mooring clamps we could continue to mask our thermal emissions indefinitely by shunting to the clamp's heat sink. But we won't be able to maintain full liftoff readiness with the clamp attached," Joker informed her.

"Don't bother. They know that we're here now. They're probably just hoping to avoid a fight with us if they can. The colony doesn't make such a tempting target anymore, with a frigate defending it."

"They have the superior force," Joker protested. "You'd think they would want to get some payback for that transport we just shot down."

"They're machines. They don't think like us, don't get angry," Shepard explained. "It's all a numbers game to them. If they don't need the colony, they'll cut their losses and pull up stakes..." At least, that was how Tali had explained it to her. "I'm going down to the armory to suit up. If the geth move in to engage in force, pull us out. I'm not sacrificing the _Normandy_ for this colony. We'll rendezvous with the rest of the Alliance fleet at that point."

"Roger that, Ma'am." Joker said unenthusiastically as Shepard unseated herself and stood up.

Sensing his trepidation, Shepard's voice became uncharacteristically soft.

"Joker, we're the only ship in the entire galaxy that's looking for Saren. If this ship were to be destroyed, do you think the Council would send anybody else after him? The Alliance? The stakes are too high to risk everything for a single colony."

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"

"Of course."

"I'm behind you, a hundred percent. I know that some of the crew is nervous, working for a Spectre who's chasing after some kind of Prothean vision and all. They didn't sign up with the Alliance expecting to just be thrown to the Council, but they all know how to follow orders. The brass says, that we're yours, and that's the final word."

"That's good to know, Flight Lieutenant." She smiled at him and laid her hand on his shoulder. "I could use that kind of honest assessment."

"Well that's what I'm here for. Honesty is my policy. Told my last girlfriend that her jeans _really did_ make her ass look big."

She rolled her eyes.

"How did you even _get_ that nickname anyway? They would pull your ass off stage at the New Apollo before you even _began_ your routine."

"You can't do that to a cripple now, can you?" He asked, rhetorically.

"Ha, just watch me!" She announced as she pretended to hook his neck with an imaginary shepherd's crook.

"Ah, now I love a woman who can kick my ass," Joker said.

"Can't _every_ woman kick your ass, Joker?" She asked.

"Well, I never said I was picky," he muttered.

She chuckled lightly at his stupid joke and shook her head.

"See, I got a rise out of you after all."

"You're alright, Joker. And I did promise to give you some latitude."

"You have _no idea_ what you've got yourself in for."

"I'll be in the armory," she announced, turning around and proceeding down the length of the CIC.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Ashley watched as Shepard stood with Liara at the equipment locker on the far side of the armory, pulling out a woman's combat hardsuit in Liara's size.

"I can't believe she's bringing the doctor along," She said to Kaidan as the two of them suited up on the other side of the armory.

"Relax, You saw her biotics in action. She'll do fine," he replied.

"It's not _her_ safety I'm worried about. This would be the perfect opportunity for her to shoot us in the back."

"Look, Ash, if you have doubts about the commander's judgment..."

"Forget I said anything, LT. I'm a marine. I can follow orders just fine," She said cutting him off. "It won't be a problem."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've chosen to use the standard 24 hour clock times that we are all familiar with for ease of storytelling. You can generally presume, however, that the characters are using the Citadel Standard Time (CST), which is based on Armali Time, since the Asari were the first to arrive at the Citadel. As Thessia spins, so too does the galaxy, and with no moon to rob her of rotational energy, I bet they don't have to add as many leap seconds as we do!
> 
> Thanks, everybody, for being patient with my rather slow publishing rate, and I hope you find Rachel to be an interesting protagonist. I've teased out only a small portion of her background so far, but I have most of it charted out on paper. And, as you can probably guess, you'll be hearing more about it as she becomes more intimate with Liara in the future. I have a lot of Liara's past charted out too, which she will also be sharing.
> 
> Also, HUGE thanks to fanfiction writer Awska, who beta read this for me. (And did _such_ an amazing job!) Awska is essentially my fanfiction heroine. She writes my very favorite Liara/FemShep story, _Unity_ , right here on ff dot net, and though I've tried to keep this story free from the influence of other writers, I am in her creative debt for some of its elements. Please check her story out if you are interested. It's incredible well-written, compelling, intelligent, and features brilliantly written characters. You can find a link in the introduction page to this story.
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


	6. Echo Out of Time (Part One)

**Echo Out of Time**

> How quickly all things disappear, bodies into the universe, memories of them in time.  
>  -Meditations by Emperor Marcus Aurelius

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Nice work with that geth dropship. It's good to see another friendly face. I'm David," the swarthy man said, extending his hand in greeting at the black-haired woman in the combat hardsuit, the one who had been the first off of the Alliance frigate. He had correctly surmised that she was in charge by observing the way she was directing the others who were piling off of the ship, a motley assortment of Systems Alliance personnel and, for some reason, a number of what appeared to be alien mercenaries.

The ship—SSV _Normandy,_ her designation read—rested gracefully in the large docking cradle of the spaceport, the heat escaping from her exhaust ports warping the view of the Prothean towers in the skyline behind her, causing them to shimmer and come apart as if they were drops of fluid floating upward to the sky. She was an unusual design as far as David could tell, and venting an unusual amount of heat to boot. Though this _was_ the first Systems Alliance vessel to moor at Zhu's Hope since David had come on board as administrative assistant, so perhaps that was actually normal for military ships.

_The Alliance_ , he thought. _Maybe they can help, not just with the geth, but... everything._ He winced in anticipation of the habitual jolt of pain that so often accompanied such stupid and undisciplined thoughts, but the pain didn't come. You never knew for sure when it was or wasn't watching.

"Commander Shepard, SSV _Normandy_ ," the woman said, turning around and inserting her gloved hand firmly into his outstretched palm. "You in charge around here?" She asked, her gaze surveying the scene of the harried colony rather than his face, as they shook hands.

The scene Shepard took in was... remarkably well-ordered really, considering the circumstances. The survivors seemed to be going about their business without much in the way of chaos or fear. They had laid out some of the wounded and dead in the open space of an unused landing tarmac, and the wounded were being attended to by what looked like a medic and a few colonists who were hopefully trained in first aid.

"In charge? No, that would be Fai Dan. I'll take you to him. If you'll follow me?" The man quickly responded, turning around and walking off without awaiting an affirmative reply from Shepard.

Shepard signaled for the rest of her squad to follow. "Have medical see what they can do for these people," she shouted an order at the NCO, service chief Grenado, who was positioned on the _Normandy's_ hangar deck, before jogging off in the direction of David.

"What's the situation here?" Shepard asked when she was once more at his side.

"It's best if Fai Dan explains that," he said without looking over to acknowledge her, plodding ahead with a determined stride.

"Maybe you can fill me in on the basics on the way," she coaxed.

The man looked oddly hesitant at the idea. "I... very well..." he began tentatively. "This is Zhu's Hope, we're the main spaceport for the entire colony. Officially we're referred to only as "Site K" by the company. This, everything you see here, is built on the roof of this tower. There's nothing in the structure below us. We exist only the surface of the tower."

"It's a big tower," Shepard agreed. "And you have a very nice colony here, but I'm more interested in the tactical situation at the moment. I'm sure you can understand," she explained.

He led them through the maze of dirty alleyways, the shady places between the prefabbed housing units. The colonists certainly seemed to take pride in their colony, Shepard noted, dressing up the drab prefabs with all kinds of flowering plants, vines, and ferns. It was almost a choking clutter of greenery, really.

"Of course, of course," David said, pausing for an awkward amount of time before continuing, "they attacked Zhu's Hope just as you were showing up. Good thing, that, too. But they've been on Feros for a few hours now. We lost contact with the main site almost immediately."

"And why haven't you sent out any distress calls?" Shepard asked as they emerged from the back alleys and into a bright public square, carpeted as it was with beds of bright flowers, yellow and red.

"I... we..." A look of pain washed over his face and he rubbed his right temple. "The sat link is in the main ExoGeni building, about two kilometers across the skyway." He pointed. "Perhaps it is... damaged or broken somehow. As I said, we've lost contact with them."

They passed another group of colonists as they traveled along a gravel path that bisected the square. The colonists were huddled together around a section of damaged irrigation tubing leading to a large water pump in the center of the plaza. That was the strange thing about all of the plants—they were present in large numbers, but they didn't seem as if they were for beautification of the colony. There wasn't even a cursory attempt, for instance, to hide the utilitarian water pump or tubing that was smack dab in the middle of the floral plaza. And the flower beds themselves were odd too. There was no discernible pattern to where red or yellow beds had been planted, just a patchwork quilt of haphazard red and yellow blocks.

The colonists surrounding the broken pipe were arguing loudly as the squad approached. "Food should be our primary concern, we have no emergency rations, but plenty of reserve water," one man said.

"Not enough to irrigate the plants," an older woman complained.

"So we'll ration the water," the man said.

"If we don't get the water flowing soon there's going to be hell to pay. You think the Thor..." Another man began, before being smacked in the chest by the woman, who silently nodded at Shepard as she and her squad passed by. The man turned around, following the direction of her nod and waved a quick acknowledgment at them before turning back to the group. "As I was saying, do you think _Fai Dan_ will stand for that?" He continued in a more hushed tone.

"Any idea why the geth would attack your colony? Has ExoGeni found anything interesting?" Shepard asked David when they had cleared the gang of onlookers and slipped back into the maze of dingy side streets.

Another look of pain washed over the man's face.

"Are you alright?" Shepard asked quizzically.

"I... suffer from migraines. It will pass," he replied, leaving her unconvinced.

They walked on in silence for a moment before Shepard repeated her original question, "So, have you found anything interesting?"

"I wouldn't know about that kind of thing, best if you talk to Fai Dan, he would know." A look of relief came over him. "That's him, just ahead," he cheerfully informed them, pointing at a balding man who was talking with a dark-haired woman by a water purifier. He promptly jogged off, looking quite glad to be rid of the interlopers.

Shepard halted before approaching the two interlocutors that David had IDed. "This is _damn_ odd," she said with frustration, turning to her squad.

"Strange that the colonists have barely acknowledged our presence, I was expecting some cheers at the very least." Garrus said, sounding quite disappointed.

"Kaidan, Ash," She called. "I want you two to take a look around while I talk to this Fai Dan. Make it look like you're securing the area, but see if you can dig up anything out of the ordinary. Wrex, Garrus, Tali, your job is actually securing this place, make sure the skyway is clear for starters, I don't want any geth approaching from the main building. Liara, you're with me."

The crew dispersed, Ash and Kaidan staying together, ducking off down one of the side streets. The three aliens, Garrus at the lead, proceeded up a main drag toward the south perimeter, and Shepard motioned at Liara to follow her.

"You still do not trust me enough to give me an assignment," Liara said when rest of the squad was out of range.

"On the contrary, something is very amiss here, it would be foolish for any of us to go alone. I want someone watching my back as well," Shepard said as the two of them approached Fai Dan and the woman he was speaking with, festooned as she was in a white floral necklace that clashed quite sharply with both her sour expression and the dire circumstances.

"Ah, you're the officer in charge of the Alliance vessel, I take it?" Fai Dan greeted them when they had approached close enough to draw his attention away from the conversation he was having with the dark-haired woman.

"That's right. Commander Shepard, SSV _Normandy_ ," Shepard said, extending her hand.

"Fai Dan, colony manager for Zhu's Hope. I hope you're here to take care of our geth problem," he said, grasping her hand firmly in both of his own, and smiling wide as he shook vigorously.

"Aren't you a little small for an army?" The dark-haired woman asked in a disapproving tone, forgoing any introductions. "And who is she?" She added, nodding at Liara.

"We're a special operations unit, not an Alliance squad. The Alliance hasn't received a distress call, actually," Shepard stated, the raised eyebrows on her face clearly asking if either of them had an explanation for that oversight.

"They haven't? Jeong assured me that one had been sent," Fai Dan said, sounding quite alarmed.

"That bastard!" The woman spat.

"Calm down, Arcelia. I'm sure there's an explanation," Fai Dan tried to assuage her.

"The explanation is self-evident," she shot back at him with contempt.

Shepard interrupted the two. "We've notified the Alliance, the _Bunker Hill_ and _La Paz_ have been diverted and should be here in a few hours, and a larger task force is being assembled as we speak. Now, who's this Jeong?"

"Ethan Jeong, he's Exogeni's site rep," Fai Dan explained. "It's his job to make sure that the colony turns a profit."

"By squeezing us dry," Arcelia added, bitterly.

"Arcelia," Fai Dan scorned her.

"And why do you think this Jeong lied about sending a distress call?" Shepard asked, turning to address Arcelia.

"I'm sure there's some mistake," Fai Dan interrupted. "He must have been unable to send the distress call."

"I have no idea why he wouldn't send a distress call," Arcelia added. "But it wouldn't be the first time he screwed this colony over."

"Just a second ago you said that the explanation was self-evident," Shepard countered.

"It's self-evident that he's a self-absorbed asshole."

Shepard shrugged her shoulders. "Doesn't really make sense for a _self-absorbed asshole_ to get himself killed here with the rest of the little people if the Alliance doesn't show up to pull his bacon out of the fire."

"I'm sure he stands to profit from it somehow," Arcelia muttered, lowering her head and crossing her arms.

"Arcelia is just bitter, Commander, "Fai Dan apologized. "You have to understand, this colony has been through a lot."

"Do any of you have any idea why the geth would attack Zhu's Hope?" Shepard asked, changing subjects.

"We're just a simple outpost. Perhaps they're looking for something in the main ExoGeni building," he offered.

"Then I presume that ExoGeni has uncovered something of interest recently?" Shepard asked.

"Nothing that they've told us about. But that's where the geth seem to have taken residence. If you want to flush them out, that's where you'll need to go," he said.

"We're just a single squad, we're not going to be able to repulse an entire geth army. You'll need to hang tight until the Alliance arrives," she said.

"What about you? You're not part of the Alliance?" He asked.

"This vessel is on loan to the Council, I'm a Spectre."

"So you're not even going to help us?" Arcelia demanded.

"I didn't say that," Shepard corrected her. "But you have to be realistic about this. We're not an army."

"I... I heard about that," Fai Dan said, nodding his head as if recalling the news. "First human Spectre... you've done us proud. Look, any help you can offer would be appreciated."

"Would this Jeong know the specifics about anything ExoGeni might have turned up?" She asked.

"It's Ethan's job to be informed about those kinds of things," he confirmed.

"Then I'd like to speak with him," she stated.

"Ethan is holed up at Site B with other survivors from the ExoGeni building. At least, he was, when he last sent word. We've lost contact with them too. But Site B is across the skyway, about three-fourths of the way to headquarters. I haven't dared to send anybody across the skyway to reach them... there's no cover out there."

"Hmm... OK, we're going to take few minutes to regroup. I'll be back to talk when we've got a plan of action... oh, and the _Normandy_ has an open channel. I can authorize you for access to some of our bandwidth if you or any of your people want to get a message out. This might be a good time to, you know, write anyone who you'd want to... well let's just say, anyone who you've got something you want to say to."

"Thank you, Commander," he said with genuine gratitude. "I'll have my people compile a mail cache which I'll forward to you."

After exchanging contact information over their omnis, Shepard and Liara turned away from the two and began to wander back toward the main plaza, the one that contained the water pump which they had passed on the way in.

"I am no expert in human interaction," Liara began when they were out of range, "but I believe that the previous pattern of unusual behavior remains unbroken."

"He's hiding something," Shepard agreed, thinking deeply to herself as they walked.

"This is a class C archeological site," Liara continued. "ExoGeni is required by Council law to submit an inventory of everything they find here to the Council Bureau of Commonwealth Antiquities at the end of each fiscal quarter. I checked the bureau records before we disembarked, but found nothing of interest." They exited out into the plaza. "Though it is not uncommon for such corporations to attempt to downplay the importance of their discoveries by using understated language that may not accurately describe the magnitude of their finds," she added.

"They may even have found something _this_ quarter too," Shepard added, waving her arm to flag down Kaidan and Ashley as they entered the square from the opposite side.

"That would raise the question of how Saren came to know about such a discovery in the first place," Liara said. "Suggesting the possibility of an inside source."

"Might explain some of this odd behavior," Shepard agreed. "So, what's the story?" She asked, when the two Alliance marines had walked over.

"It's hard to say something specific, ma'am," Kaidan reported. "But everybody is acting, well... damn peculiar... and nobody seems to want to answer any questions."

"That's the understatement of the year, LT. This place smells fishy," Ashley said.

Liara began to sniff the air, turning her head in each direction.

"What do you mean, Chief?" Shepard asked, as the chief smirked at Liara.

"Well, like the lieutenant said, nobody wants to answer any questions. Everybody seems to want to pass the buck to that Fai Dan guy. Like they're hoping that he can get us off their backs."

"You two can't offer me anything more concrete than that?" Shepard asked, mildly exasperated.

"I'm afraid not, ma'am," Kaidan confirmed.

Shepard sighed before bringing two fingers up to her ear to activate her comm. "Garrus, what's your status?"

"Yellow." The turian's voice came through their comms. "This site is as secure as it's going to be without an army to provide any real muscle. No sign of any geth on the skyway."

"So what you're saying is, not secure at all," Shepard replied.

"Pretty much," Garrus agreed. "And not likely to get any better until the Alliance shows up. We're stationed at the entrance to the only skyway. The colonists have welded together a makeshift barricade out of shipping containers. It won't hold up to any kind of real firepower, but it does offer some cover."

"Sit tight, we're on our way," she replied.

"That the skyways are still standing at all is a remarkable testament to the architectural skill of the Protheans," Liara stated with a pride that sounded as if she was describing her own offspring's handiwork.

"It may be safer to blow it, or rig it to blow, should the geth try to move across it," Shepard thought out loud, spurring a frightened look on Liara's face.

"Relax, Doc," Ashley said slapping her hard on the back. "Think of it this way, at least you got to see it while it lasted."

"I would prefer lengthier studies, and fewer explosions," Liara replied to the woman as the group set off for the southern barricade.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Take a look."

Shepard accepted the binoculars from Garrus, stepping up onto the barricade and looking out at the main ExoGeni building in the distance, the view only slightly obscured by the scattering of light off of the atmospheric haze that lay between her position on the barricades and the ExoGeni headquarters. Most of the unwanted light was automatically corrected for by the rudimentary VI assistant in the binoculars.

"That's an army alright," she said, observing the wasp-like ships of the geth. Some were affixed to the surface of the building like parasites and others were swarming around it in strange, alien patrol routes that looked unlike anything she had ever learned about at the academy, but were no doubt calculated to optimize some obscure variable or another which the geth valued. "What do you suppose they want in that building?" She asked rhetorically, as she put down the binoculars and turned around, fully aware that nobody had any clue.

"The Conduit," Wrex stated the obvious candidate.

"That's what I'm think'n too," she replied. "It's a distinct possibility anyway."

She brought up her omni's display and logged into her Gold Priority Alliance channel, addressing a transmission burst to the office of fleet admiral Steven Hackett. "Admiral, Shepard. We're on the ground. Geth are present in significant numbers. Vantage is limited, buy we've spotted thirty-four uniquely identified ships, smaller craft, apparently dropships or fighters, and about three hundred geth patrolling the skyway. There are no doubt more. I may send the _Normandy_ up later to perform an active scan now that they already know that we're here, but I'm a bit nervous about provoking them further. Right now they're relatively quiet, though they seem to have taken quite an interest in the ExoGeni headquarters. Nobody here can give me any idea why. We would appreciate any help you might be able to give us on your end regarding that mystery. I suspect that ExoGeni is holding out on us. There's little we can do here but sit tight and wait for reinforcements to arrive at this point. We'll try to to keep our heads down as per your request, but that's probably up to the geth more than me at this point. Let me know if your boys can find anything on ExoGeni, Admiral. Shepard out." She finalized the transmission and attached the official sitrep with a few taps to her omni.

"So what do we do now?" Liara asked.

"We wait," Shepard said dejectedly, turning her attention back to the scope of the binoculars. "There's no way in hell we're getting into that building. It would be suicide."

"Something you're known for, Commander," Ash remarked.

Shepard shot her a disapproving stare, before returning to the binoculars. "It was just my life on the line at Elysium."

"Well, don't let us hold you back, Commander. We're all behind you, a hundred percent," Kaidan said. "No one promised us that stopping Saren was gonna be safe."

"I appreciate your confidence, Kaidan, but Hackett was right. What I did on Elysium was... stupid. By rights, I shouldn't even be here." She paused and fiddled with the settings for a moment. "If we're going to stop Saren we're not going to do it by throwing our lives away. That's an entire battalion of synthetic war machines. Anybody who charges into that isn't brave, their stupid."

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Wrex said approvingly.

"And you, you don't speak for all of us," he added, addressing Kaidan. "Not all of us are younglings, eager to throw our lives away to impress a female."

"Easy, Wrex," Shepard said, reprimanding the krogan before Kaidan even had a chance to speak. "He's your CO in this squad. That means he _does_ speak for you. Clear?"

Wrex nodded in silence and turned away.

"Clear?" Shepard asked again, raising her voice.

"You're clear, Shepard," he responded, looking back at her.

"What about Site B?" Liara asked politely, trying to return the conversation to the mission at hand. "It is only three-quarters of the way to the main building."

"Still way too risky. There's no cover out there on the skyway, and we might spook the geth into attacking this settlement if we move out from here," Shepard explained, quickly dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. "OK, Wrex, Liara, you two have got the first shift on the barricades. The rest of you are with me. We're gonna nose around a bit, see if we can't find the source of this peculiar odor."

Liara sniffed the air again.

"It's a human saying," Wrex informed her as the others walked off the barricades. "You'll find they have more sayings than pyjaks have..." He looked down at her surprisingly sweet and innocent face, realizing for the first time what a naïve little creature this young asari truly was. He decided to curb himself in mid sentence, as her visage stirred a long forgotten protective instinct within him, a feeling he hadn't felt since that time he had returned from the female camp, mistakenly believing that he had... He shook it off, and his mind went looking for a polite word for pyjak excrement. "Well, let's just say that pyjaks aren't the cleanest of all you placentals," he finally said. "Let me know if you need any help with that one," he added, gesturing at Shepard's receding figure. "Don't let her boss you around just because you're so tiny."

"In spite of our size differential, I believe she has bossed you around far more thoroughly than me," Liara replied.

"HA HA HA!" The krogan bellowed. "She's got a quad alright!"

"Besides, I believe I am several centimeters taller than her. Is it really true, what they say about Elysium?" Liara asked him as she watched Shepard and company finally disappear around a corner.

"She's got a krogan's spirit alright," Wrex confirmed.

"Not the heroics. I mean, what they say about her. That it was a suicide attempt," Liara clarified.

Wrex stole a glance in the direction in which Shepard had walked off before turning back to Liara and lowering his voice. "When a krogan does what she did, we just attribute it to blood rage. For a human? I don't know what motivates them. They're almost as confusing as the damned salarians."

"That much is certain," Liara agreed as she brought up her omnitool and sat down, leaning her back against the interior of the barricade.

"What are you reading?" Wrex asked her after a few moments of silence.

"I am endeavoring to learn what I can about the commander's life history, prior to this assignment," she informed him.

"Hmm. Just be careful not to stick your nose where it isn't welcome," he cautioned.

"What do you mean?" She asked, looking up from her omni and staring into his large, leathery face.

"There are things people like to forget about the past," he said grimly.

"For instance?"

"Feuds with family, betrayals, lost love. The past is full of buried ghosts. The krogan know that better than anyone. But maybe you're too young to understand. In another thousand years..." He trailed off.

"Then you think it would be more wise if I did not examine her life's record," Liara asked.

"Look all you want," he said, drawing one viewport of the human made binoculars to his right eye, while his left kept tabs on Liara. "Maybe you'll learn a thing or two about their ghosts. Better to learn now than later."

Liara performed a quick search for the human term "ghost," and read the abridged human to asari cultural synopsis entry.

"As an archeologist, I suppose I have spent my whole life examining ghosts... of a sort," she said when she was through.

"All one hundred years?" He laughed dismissively. "You'll find some of the more recent ghosts are more easily called back from the void," he said as he watched the hive of geth activity that the ExoGeni headquarters had become. "Wiser fools know to let the dead rest. You can't change what's come to pass. Trying will only cause you more problems."

"But you can change what is to come," she said.

"My people are dying," he stated bluntly, showing no reticence to broach the uncomfortable topic of the genophage. "Can you change that?"

"I suppose not," she conceded, her eyes averting themselves to the floor. "But perhaps someone can," she brightly offered after a pause, looking back up at him.

He exhaled deeply through his nostrils as his right eye continued its vigil of the geth, his left flickering up and down over Liara's form as if sizing up the sincerity of her statement. "I like you," he finally declared, lowering the binoculars and looking down at her. "You're naïve. But that's your right at your age. I shouldn't try to change that. You go and stir up your ghosts. Eye of Wrath knows some of the dead deserve a kick in the quad anyway."

Liara spent the rest of her shift reading on her omni as Wrex repeatedly declined her invitations to relieve him as watchman. When Kaidan and Tali came up the ramp an hour earlier than expected carrying crates, she inquired as to whether they had found anything of note in the colony.

"Well, I've never seen so much foliage in one place before," Tali said, putting her box down. "And I grew up on the Rayya, one of our liveships. But I guess that's less unusual for a human colony."

"It's a little weird," Kaidan confirmed, setting his package down as well.

"But you have found nothing else of note?" Liara asked.

"Afraid not," Kaidan replied, shaking his head. "You're not going to like this, but Shepard ordered us to rig the skyway for destruction if the geth try to make a ground push. It could slow them down a lot, depending on the number of dropships they have.

"I understand the necessity of it," Liara said solemnly. "Every effort must of course be made to preserve lives."

"None of it will matter if the geth attack before the Alliance shows up," Wrex chimed in.

"They may not even attack at all," Kaidan offered.

"Never let your guard down with a machine," Tali cautioned. "The geth lack compassion, they kill without hesitation, you have to treat them the same."

"What sort of victory is it if you have to become what you fight against?" Kaidan asked.

"Ask me that again when machines have driven _your_ people from _your_ homeworld," she replied, unusually aggressively.

"Well, let's do our part toward making sure that never happens then. Come on," Kaidan said affably, apparently realizing that he had struck a nerve with his previous comment. "Let's get this set up."

Liara and Wrex observed the two technicians in silence as they secured the explosive devices to the primary structural supports anchoring the skyway to the tower, the critical places where the seemingly immovable bulk of the tower conspired to ensure that the skyway was in static equilibrium. Break that equilibrium, and like all bodies, it would surely move, dragged downward into the rumbling thunderheads far below.

When the technically inclined pair had finished their work and rejoined Wrex and Liara on the barricade, they relieved the krogan and asari of their vigil. Liara bid them farewell and set out with Wrex to meet up with Shepard and the others, proceeding as they were directed by Kaidan to the small courtyard where Ashley and Garrus were talking.

"Where's Shepard?" Wrex asked, as they finally wandered up to Ashley and Garrus, who were conversing next to a shipping crate which had been filed with dirt to serve as a pot for a lime tree.

"She disappeared down that alleyway to forward some of the colony's mail through the _Normandy's_ uplink. Just down the stairs, your third right." Garrus pointed. Wrex, however, didn't budge. Instead, Liara set off in that direction, checking each alley she came across until, at the _forth_ right, she spied the commander who was sitting on the ground in a pool of warm orange light emitted by her omnitool's holographic readout. Tentatively, she made her way down the alley and approached Shepard's hunched form.

"Hey," Shepard spoke first, greeting her in a hushed tone and closing down her omni's readout, but not before Liara caught a glimpse of what she had been reading.

{  
Mail Cache - Feros Site K (Zhu's Hope)

Recipients:  
Ada Jenkins  
Élodie Jenkins  
Sandeep & Christie Gupta  
David & Cindy Wu  
Yevgeny & Gretchen Ramirez  
Lyn McKimmy  
Ameera & Faisal Tariq  
Liu Kratochvíl

.

.

.

}

"No word from Hackett yet," she announced to Liara, raising her arm to indicate her omnitool. "Pretty boring for a first assignment, huh?" She asked, pulling her left leg up to her chest and resting her arm on her knee.

"Boring... and terrifying at the same time," Liara added. "I can't seem to keep my mind off of the fact that the geth could decide to attack us at any minute. I tried my hand at sketching some of the towers and other architectural work, but that seemed unable to sufficiently distract me."

"Boredom and fear," Shepard pronounced. "It's a horrible combination, and a lot of deployments are like this actually."

"And yet you have chosen this life as your profession," Liara said, taking a seat on the ground directly across from her. "I have been looking through your service record—what is publicly available on the extranet that is."

"By this point, I'm sure it's all smoke that the Ministry of Information's cooked up make the first human Spectre look good," she said dismissively.

"Perhaps, but your record is quite remarkable in spite of any exaggerations by your people's propaganda department... you excel at this life." Liara looked at her in earnest as she spoke, her gaze asking the unspoken question, "Why?"

"Don't know much else," Shepard shrugged nonchalantly. "This is my lot."

"Sometimes I get the feeling that you hide yourself behind a veneer of simple folk wisdom."

"I... yeah I guess that might be true." Liara had just said something more profound than any Alliance shrink had ever told her. "I never really thought about it before... Say, it's dangerous letting you asari into your mind," she joked somewhat uncomfortably, shifting her legs so that she rested her arms on her other knee. "So much for not understanding us humans..."

"I am afraid what little understanding I might have gleaned comes only from our melding. I was made aware of your fondness for folk wisdom just before we melded in your quarters... You could say that it was... on both our minds at the time. I do not wish to give you the erroneous impression that I have some kind of special insight into human psychology."

"OK..." Shepard said, scratching nervously at one of the seams on her armor.

"What you did on Elysium..." Liara said, returning to the topic of Shepard's record.

"Was suicidal. Is that why you looked up my record?" She asked, concerned.

"I admit, my curiosity was piqued by your conversation with the others, but I had intended to do some more research on you, anyway."

"For your case study?" Shepard joked, trying to ease the tension.

Liara laughed a little. "I suppose so, yes."

"Find anything else out of the ordinary, Doctor?"

"You are the youngest human to receive the Star of Terra," Liara said.

"That's what you get for attempting suicide through valor," Shepard said, trying to downplay the honor. "Then they send you off to see a shrink."

"Were you really trying to get yourself killed?" Liara asked.

"No... at least, I don't think so. But I was being stupidly reckless. And I don't think that shrink cured me of it completely either."

"Do you not value your own life?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but... what is there to value? It's just one life... compared to an entire colony..." She shrugged.

"A noble sentiment," Liara pronounced. "But somehow tragic too."

"If you say so," Shepard shrugged again and looked down at the dirt and concrete of the alley floor.

Liara continued to stare at her for several seconds, during which Shepard never returned her gaze. "I am sorry," she said, finally. "I am... prying. Goddess, how rude. What has come over me?"

"It's OK." Shepard assured her, looking back up at her and smiling. "You're a good friend, remember?"

"And do all of your good friends ask you such personal questions?" She asked, her tone self-accusatory, standing to her feet as if preparing to leave Shepard by herself.

"No, but then again most of my good friends aren't telepaths that I met less than three days ago," she said.

"Asari are not telepaths..." Liara began to explain before catching Shepard looking back at her with a huge grin. "You have no care for the particulars of the nomenclature."

"Nope." She continued grinning stupidly at Liara.

Liara sat back down.

"I really should apologize again..." Liara began to say after a couple more moments of silence.

"Liara!" Shepard scolded. "It's OK. You find me interesting, clinically speaking... The vision and all that. Despite my notorious hatred of shrinks, I'm not offended." She paused and thought for a moment. "It's kinda like you've seen me with my ass hanging out already anyway."

Liara tittered. "You humans have very funny phrases."

"You get the meaning though, right?" She asked.

"I believe I understand. I suppose my posterior has been partially exposed as well."

Shepard laughed heartily at that. "And it's such a nice shade of blue! A blue moon!" She howled, slapping her thigh. "It's a good thing we can trust each other as such good friends then." She added a bit more solemnly when Liara didn't seem to respond well to her _raunchy_ humor.

Another silence fell over them. Shepard looked both ways down the alley before speaking in a hushed tone. "I know I'm gonna regret asking this, but what did you mean earlier, when you said that my outlook was tragic?"

This time it was Liara who looked uncomfortable. "You don't put much value on your own life," she finally said.

"Life is short. All things pass."

"More folk wisdom," Liara stated flatly.

Shepard chewed on that for a bit before taking on an unguarded air that Liara had never before seen in the woman.

"To put a large value on your life, beyond just survival instinct, I guess you need to have something... something to protect... right?" She looked to Liara for understanding. "You value knowledge of the past, the wisdom of the ancients... That sort of thing. I just haven't found that thing I'm passionate about like that yet. Duty... duty is a good substitute... makes it easy to sleep at night too. You do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do."

"You are stronger and more driven in your goals than any of your fellow humans, and you are acting almost... automatically," Liara said, her expression almost one of awe.

"Hey now, I'm plenty spontaneous. You should compare Alliance regs on how to manage a commando squad to this three-ring circus!" She gestured all around her.

"That is not what I mean," Liara stated flatly. "People would assume that duty was your passion. But they would be mistaken."

"You have to make a living somehow, and it turns out I'm pretty good at this. I do it cause, what else is there to do really? And besides, who else would do it? The same reason trillions get up everyday and put their shoes on, brush their teeth. I just happen to get shot at too," She added to the end, smiling.

"Do you not think that people would be surprised to hear the first human Spectre talk that way, the woman who has reliably and predictably done her duty every time she was asked?" Liara questioned.

"Yeah, probably. I can't believe I even said that to you. You know what? Duty is all that matters. That's why we fight. And that's the official word from your CO. Don't doubt it," Shepard said, her posture stiffening, returning to a more official, less casual demeanor.

"That _is_ the official line. Ashley, Kaidan, all of your fellow soldiers value duty first and foremost. If they did not, they would not have braved the danger that this life puts them in. They would go home to their families or lives, but you do not have a family..." Liara said, stopping short of completing the thought.

"Or a life." Shepard finished the statement for her. "You can't think I'm _that_ pathetic."

"Pathetic? No, not at all," Liara said, distressed by the turn the conversation had taken.

"Now you know why I hate shrinks," Shepard said, standing to her feet. "And stirring up the past. What the hell does all this introspection accomplish?" She asked, rhetorically. "Makes a successful woman conclude that she doesn't have a life? That's fucking crazy talk." She turned and began to walk down the alley toward the south barricades.

"I am so sorry, I didn't mean to..." Liara began to sputter.

"No apologies," Shepard said without looking back. "I fucking asked for it. I'm some kind of masochist or something."

"Shepard, wait!" Liara called after her, scrambling to her feet.

But Shepard walked out of the alleyway, leaving Liara, staring down the passage, alone with her thoughts.

Shepard had, in fact, asked for it. She had asked Liara to elaborate about her insights into the woman's psyche. Why, if she hated psychologists so much, had she done that? Unless she really was looking for someone to open up to, even if perhaps she didn't know it herself. _I've seen her, she's so lonely._ Goddess, and she had flubbed it. _You stupid foolish girl_ , she cursed herself. _She was finally opening herself up to you and what do you go and tell her? That she's pathetic? Why would you say something like that?_ She clenched her fists. _Foolish, foolish, foolish,_ she chastised herself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pain that bit suddenly into the back of her neck, just under her middle crest fringe, and she collapsed to the ground, writhing uncontrollably, as the electric cycle from the intruding prongs incapacitated her muscular control.

"Wasn't sure where to shoot this thing on her squidhead," a female voice said from behind her incapacitated form. "Don't see why we don't just kill her."

"She's asari, like the other. She's useful to it." David's voice said, before his face appeared in her blurry vision. "I'm sorry," he added in a whisper as he bent down and began to bind her limbs. "This is the best I could do. It's not so bad, you'll see."

She felt him begin to inject her with a hypodermic, plunging the needle straight into her _tertian artery_ , just under the middle _ainova_ fringe at the back of her crest. "Doc Jensen assures me this is safe for asari," he said. "Just gonna put you to sleep for a bit. Nothing but a bit of..."


	7. Echo Out of Time (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this chapter was far, far too long I have taken the opportunity upon publishing a new chapter to break this one up into two parts. Skip ahead one chapter if you want reach the new material, or feel free to reread the end of this one if you prefer.

An explosion rocked her from her dreamless sleep in what seemed like the very next instant.

She was bound and gagged, locked in some kind of supply room. Her armor gone, she was dressed only in her armor's undersuit, what the human marines had referred to as "skivvies." Light was shining in from a tiny window above her, and there were sounds of gunfire in the distance, along with voices shouting just behind the sealed door.

"No, no, report to your assembly station. I'll deal with her," a muffled male voice spoke in an excited tone.

"But doctor, the geth will be..." Another male voice protested.

"Just go!" The first shouted.

The voices fell silent, leaving only the clacking of distant gunfire. She looked around the room. It was a medical store-room, and she was tied to one of the shelving units by only the crude mechanism of synthetic fiber rope. Clearly her abductors had underestimated or failed to understand her abilities. She began tugging at the knots with her biotics, loosening them bit by bit, as she listened to the sound of combat intensify around her. When at last the final knot had come undone, she ripped the gag from her mouth and leapt to her feet, immediately becoming aware that she was still quite dizzy from the medication. She reached out to steady herself, her hand finding itself wrapped around the post of some standalone shelving which occupied the middle of the supply room. She tried to activate her omni but the display refused to appear, damaged, no doubt, by the electricity that had been used to incapacitate her.

She began looking through the medical supplies, taking caution not to alert those on the other side of the door with the noise of her desperate search. It took several minutes to find what she was searching for, Beutamerol Detox. Nearly every medical center had the standard box of Beutamerol Detox, an injection that would clear her system of nearly any foreign compound in a matter of minutes. She went digging through the container, human, turian, asari... adult formulated, she selected the proper needle and self-administered it to her _efotal vein_ in her elbow pit.

She was preparing to stand still for several minutes and wait for the miracle drug to work its wonders when a nearby explosion rocked the room, its pressure wave shattering the glass of the tiny window that was providing the room with light above.

Carefully climbing up the shelving, she peeked out of the small shattered opening and realized that she was looking down onto the main plaza, but where the water pump had once stood, a great cratering hole was now smoking. Another projectile, its trail blazing out from an Alliance frigate hanging in the sky above, smashed into the crater, nearly knocking her off her perch. Apparently finished unleashing destruction onto the helpless pump, the frigate began reorientation maneuvers, firing its lateral thrusters to reorient itself.

"Doctor, doc Jensen!" She could hear a female voice shouting from a distance behind the door.

"What is it, what's happening?" The panicked male voice from earlier asked in reply.

"The Alliance, they're are attacking!" The female voice was closer now, and Liara could make out that it was the voice of her earlier assailant. "They're targeting the water pump!"

"They know! God help us. C'mon! I have to hide!" The male voice shouted.

"What about her?" The female voice asked.

"Leave her," the male voice replied.

"She's got that biotic shit. She'll tear the place apart if she wakes up," the female protested.

"Leave her, she's tied up," the male voice shouted, further away this time.

"But Fai Dan will want to..." the female voice began.

"She's not for Fai Dan!" The male shouted. "I lied, alright? Now c'mon!"

"What the fuck?" the female voice asked, before seeming to acquiesce." Fine, fine! I'm going to my ready station."

"You do that!" The male voice replied curtly.

"Yeah, fuck you and the rest of ExoGeni, Doc!"

The voices fell silent again. Liara looked back out of the small window and was shocked to see Shepard and the rest of the squad engaged in a tactical retreat across the plaza, heading in the direction of the freshly blasted hole. They were divided into two staggered teams, one laying down suppressing fire at the group of colonists who were pursuing them as the other ran across the square, and then reversing roles as the first group made a break for it, protected by the covering fire of the second.

"Shepard!" She shouted, but her cry was drowned out by the deafening noise that roared in suddenly from above, seemly obliterating all other sound. The reoriented Alliance frigate, no doubt the _Bunker Mountain_ , had begun firing at a truly terrifying rate at a geth ship in the distance, its mass accelerator cannons booming in a staccato thumping pattern as the slugs sliced through the air.

And she noted for the first time that the frigate wasn't alone in the sky. There was an Alliance cruiser in the distance too, probably the _La Paz_. And geth ships, Goddess, geth ships everywhere. Their terrible insectoid silhouettes nearly blotting out the sky like a swarm.

 _Goddess, I'm going to die here_ , she realized with a calm that surprised even herself. The geth would surely destroy the colony. She had always imagined that the fact of her imminent demise would be greeted with a great deal more emotion than she was currently feeling. No... wait... there it was. A little pit of fear, deep down in her stomach, ready and waiting to grow into a full-sized terror if only she would elect to feed the suckling monster with her attention. Better to focus on action, she concluded. _Action first, emotions later_ , she thought.

She took a moment to gatherer herself and reassess the situation. Mustering all of the scientific detachment she could manage, she turned her attention back to the geth ships. _Blotting out the sky_ had been an overreaction, a distortion of the truth, caused by a combination of fear and shock. And though she would readily concede that her initial fearful assessment had been high, it was still true that there were far too many geth ships for two frigates and a cruiser to handle. You didn't need to be a tactician to realize that. She really was going to die here. _Only one thing to do then_ , she logically concluded, climbing back down and sinking to her knees in prayer.

Her dutiful and uninspired invocation of the Hymn of the Returning Spirit was cut short when the noise from the frigate's firing pattern suddenly stopped. Liara climbed back up and peeked out the window again, in time to see the ship begin shuddering in the sky as it keeled and started drifting slowly downward in a helical trajectory toward center of the colony. _Oh Goddess, Goddess no._ She wanted to avert her eyes but couldn't seem to muster the willpower to do so. Mesmerizing flames of terrible, exotic colors, changing hue and intensity by the second, were escaping from a great hole in the side of the spiraling craft. She watched helplessly as a geth projectile made contact with the now exposed underbelly of the cantered ship and the last remnants of the mass effect field vanished, causing the ship to at last succumb fully to the acceleration of Feros' gravity. It plummeted quickly out of sight, crashing somewhere behind the skyline of housing modules, sending up a billowing cloud of dust and smoke in its wake. Across the field she could make out Shepard and company, leaping one by one down into the hole that the frigate had blasted in the center of the plaza.

She was about to turn around, to restart the hymn, a devotional supposed to prepare the essence of her being for its bodiless sojourn and reintegration with the universal consciousness, when she suddenly thought better of it. It was all superstition after all; her prayer wouldn't change anything... nothing real. And she realized with sudden clarity that she would rather spend her last minutes with them, pursuing whatever objective, whatever unknown it was that they, her brothers and sisters in arms, were pushing toward with such stoic determination in the face of imminent death. She would rather that, than spend those same moments on her knees, praying a selfish prayer, the effectiveness of which ought to be highly suspect to a scientific rationalist such as herself anyway. Perhaps the Beutamerol Detox was working after all.

 _Still your mother's daughter,_ she scolded herself. She had a choice now, she could stay and pray like a good matriarch's daughter, or follow after the commandos, and whatever secret it was they were pursuing, like the ever-curious scientist that she knew she was. She had made that decision already, years ago. Now she would just have to act to reaffirm it... by dashing out, unshielded into a combat zone.

She walked over to the supply room's access panel, putting on an air of as much confidence as she could muster, and pressed the button to open the door. Miraculously, the door seemed to respond to her self-assured authority, sliding open without protestation, revealing an empty medical office. _Of course,_ she thought, _the door cannot be locked for users on the inside for safety purposes_. Well, that part was simple.

She crossed the office and stepped out into the empty street, crouching low and moving as quickly as she could through the alleys to the open plaza.

"And I'll see it all again with the dawn," she muttered, deciding at the last-minute that there was no _real_ harm in reciting the penultimate and most important line of the hymn, as she looked out at the open space she would have to cover to get to the crater. She wrapped herself in a biotic barrier and sprinted out across the beds of flowers toward the space where the water pump had once stood.

Closer, closer. Her feet pounded one after the other, chewing up the flowers, as she drew nearer and nearer to the opening. She was almost to the hole before a few erratic and misplaced shots began to nick away at her barrier's integrity. But nothing like any kind of focused or sustained fire managed to find her lithe form as she dove headlong into the pit, easing herself to a graceful enough landing through a final application of her biotics.

Standing up and dusting herself off, she took stock of her situation. The first thing that struck her was that it was... damp... and humid. And there was some kind of growth everywhere. Vines were twinning around the girders and the concrete of the ceilings and floors, even around the now broken remains of the immolated water pump's subterranean plumbing. She moved quickly out of the light and ducked into the shadows, in case any of the gunmen who had shot at her during her dash across the plaza might be planning to pursue her down the hole.

Her eyes surveyed the chaos of the blasted room from her position in the darkness at the perimeter of light which pored in from the opening above. From what she could make of the twisted remains of the piping that had been located under the water pump, she had two options. She could travel in the direction of inflow, or in the direction of outflow.

Water intake doubtless would lead eventually to an aqueduct, the still functioning source of all the colony's water, a legacy of superior Prothean engineering. But to have all this piping hidden underground, that seemed... anomalous... This pump didn't seem to serve as a hub, with branching pipes each servicing a different sector of the colony. The entirety of the water flow was being directed down, to some unknown purpose deeper within the building. Outflow, she decided, nodding to herself, and setting off in that direction.

The noise from the combat outside was still loud in her auditory folds, but she could just make out a voice in the distance as she felt her way carefully along the walls of the interior corridors. The voice seemed to confirm that she was indeed on the right path. The right path to... well, something... Shepard and the squad hopefully. But the voice faded away before she could make out any information about it, and she was left alone trying to navigate in the dark of the tunnels with only her wits and the small bit of ambient light which the blasted opening in the ceiling, now several meters behind her, could still provide, a light which was growing ever dimmer as she proceeded deeper and deeper into the structure.

Fortunately, her situation soon began to reverse itself. Instead of an ever receding light-source behind her, she could begin to see light ahead of her, dancing and moving across the walls as it splashed out from a bend in the corridor, ahead.

Approaching with silence and caution, she heaved a sigh of relief when she turned the corner and spotted what must have been the source of the earlier voice, a male figure, facing away from her, back-lit by his flashlight.

"Kaidan!" She shouted at his silhouetted form, flagging him down with a wave of her hand.

"Liara?" He called back, starting to jog down the hall in her direction. "Where have you been? We've been worried sick about you," he said, as he approached.

"My comm is damaged," she quickly explained, tapping her wrist to indicate her omnitool. "It is a long story. But I suspect less important, ultimately, than what you have been doing. Perhaps you should fill me in instead. Why are we down here?" She asked.

The expression on his face indicated reluctance at having to wait to hear Liara's explanation of her absence and state of relative undress, but he nodded his head in the affirmative anyway. "We got word back from Hackett and the brass. Turns out there's some kind of telepathic lifeform, called the Thorian, living under the colony here. ExoGeni was trying to keep mum about it because apparently those _bastards_ were letting it have its way with colonists... to _assess future monetization possibilities_ or some horrible thing."

"Goddess." She shook her head in disbelief.

"Apparently Hackett scared the board of directors so bad they fessed right up to it," he explained. "And well, Shepard thinks that must be what the geth are looking for too. And she wants to find it first."

"The geth are attacking in full strength," Liara stated solemnly.

"Well, they picked a hell of a good time for it," he replied. "The rest of the relief fleet is here. It's more than enough to take them," he added, sensing her worry.

"Then... we are not going to die?" She asked with a mixture of bewilderment and tentative relief.

"Not yet anyway, presuming we can keep our heads down until they can clear things up topside. Let me radio Shepard and let her know you're here," he said, opening up his comm.

"Where the fuck's she been?" Liara heard Shepard shouting back even through the thick material of his helmet. Why did he not use cochlear implants like Shepard and Ashley? Was this due to another human gender dimorphism?

"I don't know, ma'am. She says her comm has been damaged," he reported.

"Never mind that. Get your asses down here on the double, I think we've found something," Shepard said back.

"Roger, we're on our way," Kaidan spoke into his comm, before turning to Liara. "We're looking for some kind of central node or something," He explained, gesturing at all of the growth that choked the walls and ceilings as they descended deeper into the guts of the weed-tangled skyscraper.

"What sort of being is this creature we seek?" Liara asked, as they slid down the crumbling slope of what had once been a stairwell, following both the vines and pipes, deeper into the structure.

"ExoGeni says it's like some kind of plant or something," Kaidan informed her. "They think it uses spores to control the colonists, or something." He turned to look at her and shrugged. "I don't really know, science isn't my thing," he said, his eyes seemingly asking if any of it made any more sense to her.

"It sounds fascinating," she confirmed, "but what of the colonists?" She asked as Kaidan turned back around, dropping to his hands and knees to begin easing his body down a three meter drop in the path in front of them where the stairwell had collapsed in on itself.

"They started to us attack when... _uff_... the rest of the Alliance cavalry showed up," he said, grunting as he let his body drop the last few feet to the bottom of the crevice. "There's been some... casualties," he stated, rubbing the back of his neck while looking up at Liara, his face wearing an expression of remorse.

"I am sorry," she said, staring down at him in sympathy.

"Come on," was his only reply, gesturing at her to join him at the bottom of the crevice.

She eased herself down most of the way, just as Kaidan had done, but found his hands firmly around her waist as she was about to let go, helping to guide her down to a more gentle landing than his own.

As her feet planted themselves firmly on the ground Garrus came bounding out from behind a pile of rubble, scaring her half to death. "Come on," he said, excitedly. "You two aren't going to want to miss this."

He disappeared quickly back the way he had come. Kaidan and Liara both exchanged a bewildered look before running after him.

At the end of the corridor Garrus disappeared into an entrance way which led out onto a wide balcony, the balcony itself opening out onto a large shaft which extended down, deep into the structure and was designed much like an atrium, with balconies above and below.

Liara and Kaidan followed him out onto the balcony in the atrium-like chamber, but stopped in their tracks as they found Shepard, Ashley, Wrex, and Tali all gazing upward at a slick and dripping mess of plant matter that was suspended from the ceiling in front of them.

"That is... disturbing," Shepard finally said, breaking the silence of the squad's awed reverie.

"Well, you found it, Commander... Now what?" Garrus asked, his voice announcing both his presence and drawing the squads attention to Liara and Kaidan.

Ashley glanced over at the newcomers, sizing up Liara particularly carefully, an action to which the asari was completely oblivious, mesmerized as she was by the Thorian.

"I guess the easy part's over," Shepard agreed, looking back over her shoulder at them. "I don't suppose any of you have any expertise in xenobiology," she said, gazing over at Liara who shook her head in the negative, her own dumbstruck gaze never leaving the mass of glistening tendrils that were now beginning to pulsate above them. Shepard was eying Liara's armorless form with her mouth open, apparently about to make some remark when Garrus spoke first.

"Well, that's new," the turian stated bluntly, as the plant-like mound began to lurch and heave. Shepard looked back to the Thorian in time to see a single tendril begin stretching itself down from the main growth, reaching its way for the floor of the chamber as if somehow tasting the air in front of it. The opening that was growing wider at the end of the tendril caused it to look distinctly like the ovipositor of some awful giant insect. And the hideous scene was made all the more disgusting by the contractions which were clearly transiting some kind of mass through the length of the tendril in an esophageal fashion.

Shepard drew her assault rifle and took a bead on the disgusting orifice just as the mass began to to crown.

And just like an infant, crown it did, because the mass was in fact... a person?

"Keelah!" Tali practically squeaked out the exclamation, as the green-skinned and quite naked asari slithered out onto the floor.

Without even the slightest hesitation the naked figure immediately began to right itself, standing up and facing the crowd, her eyes penetrating the shocked onlookers with a deranged stare that seemed to look through them, rather than at them.

"Shi... Shiala?" Liara gasped, her jaw hanging wide in what was, for her, a most uncommon and unbecoming expression of shock.

"You know this woman?" Shepard asked, turning back to Liara with a distressed look in her face.

"Figures," Ashley whispered so that only Wrex could hear her.

"Be careful," Liara warned. "Shiala is one of my mother's most talented disciples."

Shiala began speaking as if she had heard none of the conversation. "Invaders, your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose. I speak for the Old Growth as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe."

In a rare moment of hesitation, Shepard again looked back to her squad to make sure that she heard all of that correctly, but Ashley nudged her forward. "Say something," she whispered.

"Um... Greetings. I'm Commander Shepard," she floundered as she stepped forward awkwardly, unsure of where to begin. "We come in peace," she added even more tentatively.

Ash's eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head, but the green asari continued to stare past the group with her vacuous look.

"Flesh knows not dormancy, only death, the vessel of new growth," she proclaimed.

"You say you spoke with Saren?" Shepard asked, becoming more confident, and cutting straight to the chase.

"Saren sought knowledge of those who are gone. The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the long cycle, trades were made, then cold ones began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle, flesh fairly given."

"The fuck is she say'n?" Shepard turned to look at the faces of her squad again for guidance.

"The Thorian made some kind of deal with Saren, a trade. But now his geth have attacked its thralls," Liara urgently explained.

"The Conduit!" Shepard exclaimed. "Did you give him the Conduit?" She asked, turning back to the green asari. "Saren is trying to silence you! He doesn't want me to know about whatever deal you made. Help me," she said, laying a bargain out on the table. "Tell me what you know about the Conduit and I'll strike back against him. We're already taking care of the geth!"

"The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies, it will listen no more to those who scurry. Your lives are short, but have gone on long enough. Your blood will feed the ground for new growth."

As Shiala finished her pontificating threat, a group of about twenty colonists, with Fai Dan at their head, began clambering over a large pile of debris to the left of the squad which had been almost blocking one of the exits. They were wielding a motley assortment of weapons, running the gamut from military grade firearms to rusted pipes. Some looked determined, others nervous, but Fai Dan put his hand out, gesturing all of them to stop before they approached too close.

"You were only trying to help, I know," he spoke, his face contorting in pain, his body hunched over. "But there's nothing I can do."

Shepard and squad stared back at them, weapons drawn.

He straightened up suddenly, drawing his pistol to his temple in a quick movement. "I won't kill you," he shouted, sounding terrified. "But you have to promise to spare the others. They're not to blame for all this."

"What exactly do you want me to do?" Shepard asked him back, never lowering her assault rifle.

"Something! Anything! You're the Spectre!" He pleaded in desperation, gun still firmly pressed against his temple.

"We could kill it," Wrex suggested.

"The Thorian?" Kaidan asked.

"Kill it!" Liara protested. "How can you suggest destroying such a unique lifeform?"

"It may be the only way," Ash said.

"We can't kill it. We need what it knows," Shepard interjected.

"Liara, I could..." Shiala spoke, drawing the group's attention back to the almost forgotten mouthpiece of the Thorian. "I could... AHH," she screamed, sinking to her knees. "Meld, have what you need," she shouted through gritted teeth.

"Commander, I think she is suggesting that..." Liara began before being stopped short in mid sentence by the deafening racket of gunfire which began to rain down from the balcony across and above from them.

In a whirl of confusion, people, unshielded colonists, began to fall dead as all parties except Shiala went scrambling for cover.

"Geth!" Tali shouted. As Shepard and company took up positions to return fire.

"Kaidan, Wrex, Liara! Protect the civilians!" Shepard shouted.

"This is crazy, Shepard!" Wrex shouted back angrily, turning away from the direction of incoming fire and slumping safely behind a stone pillar as he added his stasis field to Kaidan and Liara's, enveloping as many civvies as he could manage in the field of biotic protection. The task was made significantly more difficult by the fact that the damn little soft humans were scurrying all over the place, each one trying to take up a forward position to return fire on the geth, instead running away as any unshielded idiot with half a varren's brain ought to know to do in a firefight.

"We're pinned down here!" Garrus called out from behind his position of cover.

It was true, the geth had the high ground. And there was no way they could fall back anywhere without abandoning the colonists to be slaughtered by the geth.

"Arrgh." An unholy sound echoed throughout the chamber, directing Shepard's attention to the bleeding mass of tendrils that was the Thorian's equivalent of a central nervous system. The geth had opened fire upon it as well. _Christ, they're tearing it apart,_ she thought as she watched chunks of vegetable matter flying from its hide as a storm of mass accelerator slugs chewed it apart, bite by rapidly followed bite. The geth were going to kill it, there was nothing she could do to stop that now. But if it was going to die anyway...

"I can't hold this for much longer, Shepard!" Wrex bellowed. She could tell from the expressions on Kaidan and Liara's faces that they would be fatiguing soon as well. Holding so many in stasis was a difficult task for any biotic.

"Ash! Kill that thing," she shouted, nodding her head up at the Thorian.

"With pleasure, Commander!" the gunnery chief replied, readying three of the discus shaped grenades. The grenades used tiny mass effect fields to allow the payload to glide through the air for incredible distances when thrown like a frisbee and ultimately for the projectile to become nearly stationary upon finally encountering a resistance. This effect had given rise to the inaccurate designation, "sticky grenade," among Alliance marines because the grenades appeared to "stick" to their targets.

She let them fly, one after another with a studied and effortless precision that was a testament to her skill at soldiering, each one finding its respective target, spaced neatly apart at the seam where the Thorian's bulk met the ceiling.

She sent the detonate command from her hardsuit's computer and the Thorian came crashing down from the ceiling, plummeting down the shaft into the darkness far below. Its last remaining tendrils ripped from the mortar of the skyscraper as they were yanked violently loose by the falling mass, sending a rain of cement and dust down the hole to join it in whatever tomb lay below.

"Shepard?" Wrex shouted after some of the dust had cleared, his voice unusually unsteady for a krogan.

"It's dead," she called back. "Let 'em go, let 'em go!"

The three biotics dropped their respective stasis fields in unison. Most of the colonists began running away, but others dropped to the floor and stayed there. Some began to wander around as if they had no idea they were in the middle of a gunfight.

"Christ!" Shepard called out again as she watched the woman who was closest to her take a shot straight through her shoulder, the force of the impact spinning the confused woman around and slamming her face first onto the ground, where a river of blood began to spill from her prone form. To make matters worse, the geth that had originally been firing on the Thorian now joined the rest of geth, directing their firepower at the colonists and her squad.

Liara and Kaidan began to push some of the other disoriented civilians into positions of cover with well-timed shoves from their biotics. Once most of the closest civilians had been dealt with, they both began to reposition themselves to try to deal with the stragglers on the perimeters.

"Liara! Head down! NOW!" Shepard shouted at the stupid helmet-less woman. "Stay in cover!"

Kaidan made short work of shepherding the rest of the colonists into positions of safety as the rest of the squad, minus Liara, laid down suppressing fire to cover him.

After several minutes of exchanging gunfire with the geth on the balcony above, Shepard was preparing to order her squad to fall back to the corridor through which they had originally entered the chamber. She was planning on sending Liara first, covered by both Liara's own and Kaidan's biotics, and followed afterward by the rest of the squad. Just as she was about to issue the order, an explosion ripped through the balcony above, sending some of the geth flying off the edge and down the pit to join the Thorian in the darkness below.

Shepard ordered her squad to cease-fire as she checked her comms. She had lost contact with the rest of the Alliance's ad hoc communications network this deep inside the Faraday cage of rebar and metal that must have made up the interior of the walls of the ancient tower. But her omni was now informing her that twenty-six signed and verified Alliance comms were now in direct range of her own comm, with the rest of the fleet available in only a few hops over a daisy chain of seven forward operating repeaters.

She sent a contact request to the highest ranking of the twenty-six comms, which she marked as emergency priority.

"Major Yoshida," the acknowledgment came back.

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard. Your boys just take care of our little geth problem?" She asked. "And are we confirmed clear?"

"That was us, Spectre, and we have no sign of hostiles," the voice confirmed.

"Then we owe you one," she replied. "But right now we've got wounded down here that need medical attention ASAP, civilians."

"We've got two field medics with us, hang tight, we're com'n down!"

"Better get fleet medical on the horn too, it's serious," she clarified.

"Roger that, ma'am" the major said.

Did a superior officer really just refer to her as ma'am? She shook off the awkwardness of that idea and began issuing orders to her squad. "Ash, Kaidan, see what you can do for any of these people," she said gesturing at the wounded civilians. "Garrus, you know basic first aid for humans right?"

"It's part of basic C-Sec training," he confirmed.

"Then help Ash and Kaidan where you can. The rest of you... shit!" She exclaimed when she noticed Shiala writhing on the floor in a pool of purple blood.

Shepard and Liara went running up to her.

"Little Wing," she whispered, much to Shepard's confusion, as she tried to muster something resembling a smile at Liara, who had begun applying medi-gel to her abdominal wound.

"She's confused from the blood loss," Shepard explained.

"No, stop," Shiala commanded. "Can't afford sleep, already so tired."

"You're injured," Liara informed the woman, as if Shiala was delirious.

"The Cipher," she said grabbing Liara's hand before she could apply more of the soporific agent. "I gave it Saren."

"What is it?" Shepard asked, kneeling down next to Liara and looking deep into the Shiala's eyes.

"Information, a point of view." She shook her head at the inadequacy of her words. "The Cipher is the very essence of being a Prothean, it cannot be described or explained. It would be... ahh... like trying to explain color to a creature without eyes."

"Impossible," Liara gasped. "Unless..."

"You gave Saren a point of view?" Shepard asked, nonplussed.

"The Thorian must be very old," Liara stated with amazement. Shiala merely nodded her head at Liara's understanding. "How old?" Liara asked in an urgent whisper.

"It's exact age is impossible to know. It measured time... differently. Ten thousand years of hibernation, broken by a few frantic centuries of activity. Its mind transcended all classification... and now it is gone."

"This is fascinating," Shepard interrupted. "But right now we to get you stabilized."

"No," Shiala protested. "I must give the Cipher to Liara."

"You can do that?" Shepard asked.

"As I gave it to Saren," she confirmed. "We should begin, quickly," she said.

"You can do it after you're stabilized," Shepard said, reaching over for the medi-gel in Liara's stationary hands.

Shiala shook her head. "My connection with the Thorian is already fading, decaying to nothing... ahh... Like a resonating string, the echo fades. This must be done now if it is to happen," she insisted.

Shepard gave Liara a worried look. "You don't have to do this, you know," she told Liara.

"This is what I want," Liara confirmed, bringing her forehead into contact with Shiala's.

"Embrace eternity, Little Wing," Shiala said, both of their eyes blazing into spheres of obsidian glass.

Shepard watched with bated breath for what seemed like several minutes but was, in actuality, probably closer to thirty seconds, before Liara broke away and looked up at her.

"We have decided that you must go first," Liara stated.

"What? I thought you..." Shepard stuttered.

"You have the vision from the beacon," Liara explained quickly. "Please, there is little time, Commander," she added.

Shepard looked down stoically at the strange, naked asari lying in the pool of purple blood, her face a study of calm confidence to those around her, but her fear was painfully obvious to Liara, who had come to know her well.

"You trust me." Liara stated the fact, laying her hand on Shepard's shoulder. Shepard merely nodded, and Liara replied with a sympathetic smile. "You need the Cipher; she will not harm you."

Shepard leaned in close and touched her forehead to Shiala's as she had seen Liara do. "Embrace eternity, Commander," Shiala whispered.

The two of them remained coupled together for several minutes, during which time Major Yoshido's unit arrived on the scene and began addressing the wounded, relieving the aliens from that burden. Kaidan filled the major in on the situation as best as he could explain it himself.

"That's why she's Spectre material," the Major Yoshido proclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief at the tale of ancient plants and asari Ciphers. "All that's _way_ above my pay grade."

The two looked over at Shepard, whose body began to lean forward, losing its balance and finally slumping down onto Shiala's body underneath it.

"Oh, Goddess, she died while she was joined!" Liara exclaimed. "No no no no no," she added, dragging Shepard's limp body off of Shiala and rolling her onto her back. "She needs medical treatment," she cried, looking up in panic at the rest of the onlookers, the men and women of Major Yoshido's squad who weren't among those tending to the wounded. By this time a fairly large contingent had come over to observe the rather bizarre scene. But as soon as she had uttered the statement, Shepard's body seized in her arms as the hardsuit's built in defibrillator discharged.

"ahahh..." Shepard babbled as she opened her eyes and then promptly vomited.

"That asari fried her brain!" Ashley exclaimed.

"Give her a second," Kaidan said, kneeling down to check her vitals.

"Hey, handsome," she hoarsely whispered when his face came into view.

He gave her a disbelieving look as he wiped her chin clean and checked her pulse. "I _think_ she's going to be alright," he pronounced. "Heartbeat is kinda fast."

"What the hell is it with you and close calls, Skipper?" Ash asked.

"Death wish," Shepard croaked back hoarsely. "Doc said so."

"Let's get her moved onto the _Normandy_ ," Kaidan said, massaging his temples vigorously.

"Are you OK, LT?" Ashley asked. "You kept that stasis field up for quite a while."

"I'll be fine. How are you two?" He said looking at Wrex and then Liara.

"Fine," Wrex said with no emotion.

"I will be fine," Liara echoed, "just... tired."

"Ash, have them requisition a stretcher for Shepard, I want Doctor Chakwas to take a look at her as soon as possible," Kaidan ordered her.

"God, the room is spinning. Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to bed," Shepard croaked in the best sing-song voice her abused throat could manage. "Ah fuck me," she appended, when she turned her head to the side and got a view of the carnage that surrounded her.

"I don't think that's how it goes," Kaidan said, too distracted with signaling the _Normandy_ on his omnitool to look over at her.

"That's where you're oh so wrong, Lieutenant," she called back, her senses finally beginning to reassert themselves, the scent of human viscera announcing its presence in her consciousness.

"Fuck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. This is an AU, huh? And I bet you thought Liara was about to receive the Cipher! Fooled you!
> 
> Anyway, I have an outline that I've been sticking to. I know who lives and who dies, the trials, tribulations, and lessons learned by each and every character. But I can feel the characters already pulling against this constraint that I've tried to place upon them. They are already telling me that they have different ideas about their fates than my megalomaniac grand vision of how this symphony ought to be orchestrated. It's amazing what a life of their own they take on. This is probably for the best; they know better than I. And while I won't abandon my outline, it is a living document, and I'm open to making changes as the story flows ever onward.
> 
> I'm so privileged to have Awska as my beta reader! She does such a wonderful job! Astute readers of both her story and mine will have noticed a subtle little nod to Eevy Shepard's first rule during the firefight with the geth, as well as the borrowed term _ainova,_ which refers collectively to the three back fringes of the asari crest in Serran (in her story) and Armali (in this story). Just a little nod and wink to say, "thank you for being my beta reader!"
> 
> So, Wrex on human culture: he knows a lot about human phrases and culture, for example ghosts, because, as a merc and bounty hunter, he's dealt a lot with the upstart race, who seem to have wormed their way into every corner of the galaxy in the three short decades they've been on the scene. And I doubt they've stopped telling ghost stories or sharing their various superstitious nonsense in that time.
> 
> It's a little known tidbit of lore that medi-gel causes the patient to go into a deep coma-like sleep when applied in large amounts. At least, this happened in one of the novels, I can't remember which (not Deception, but perhaps Retribution). This is why Shiala resists application of the soporific.
> 
> Show Me The Way To Go Home was a popular drinking song from the early 20th century that Alliance Marines have co-opted by changing the lyrics around a bit to suit their own alcohol induced debaucheries:
> 
> Wherever I may roam  
> Planetside or space or foam  
> You can always hear me singing this song  
> Show me the way to go home!
> 
> Renditions of the original lyrics are easy to find on that greatest ever archive of human knowledge called "the internet" which, conveniently enough, your ass just happens to be parked in front a functioning access terminal for.
> 
> I'm aware that there are a few unanswered questions in this chapter. Some things I was hoping you could probably deduce on your own, but Feros isn't exactly over, in the sense that we still have a lot of fallout to deal with and loose ends to tie up. (Why did Doctor Jensen abduct Liara?) Hopefully any glaring questions about why events played out as they did will be cleared up in the next chapter, but I enjoy feedback because this helps me to determine where there is a disconnect between what I find perfectly obvious and what you, the readers do.


	8. Web of Lies (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick apology for the amount of time it took me to write this chapter. Yes, surprise, SoF is still in the works! By way of explanation, I _did_ spend a large portion of that time "homeless" as it were. I was in the middle of a move and living out of a friend's basement. Moving really is a huge pain in the ass, especially if you're having your stuff packed into storage for a month and a half in the process. I didn't really do much writing until I was sitting here in a fully unpacked and decorated house. Also, I'm lazy, and so I played _Bioshock Infinite_ and _Planescape: Torment_. Sue me.
> 
> My beta reader, Awska, has informed me that my chapters are longer than a madman's rambling manifesto. So I've decided to break this one up a little. Yes, you'll be getting this behemoth, 14k word monstrosity in at least two parts, maybe three. Expect faster than usual publishing for a short burst followed by a return to my usual "geologic" timescale.
> 
> The chapter (or now chapters) you are about to read (your mission, if you choose to accept it), were originally conceived of as a bit of a "who-dunnit." I'm hoping that as the reader, you'll follow Shepard's investigation as an engaged rather than passive participant. That is, I hope that you'll put your thinking cap on and try to noodle this thing out with her. Like many a _Scooby Doo_ episode, I don't think that you stand much of a chance of actually solving the mystery before the "unmasking of old man Jenkins," if you will, but I do think that you will have more fun if you ask yourself questions like, "is this person lying, does their story make sense, what could have caused event x," et cetera. Since this chapter is deeply tied to the events of the previous chapter, it might suit some readers to go back and reread that part of the story, if only to re-familiarize themselves with this particular fanfic, and maybe sort the cruft of those _other_ fanfics out of their minds.
> 
> I've also added an expansion to the introduction page of this story that covers sex, gender, and sexuality topics which have come to my attention as of late. I didn't realize the thin ice I was treading on when I made Rachel a straight woman who falls for an asari. What a minefield! Browse on over to that if you are interested.

**Web of Lies**

> _Oh what a tangled web we weave,_
> 
> _When first we practise to deceive!_
> 
> _-Marmion by Sir Walter Scott_

~.~.~.~.~.~

Kaidan Alenko sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, surveying the assortment of _Normandy_ personnel assembled in the mess. The spontaneous gathering—ostensibly a vigil for Shepard, who had been confined to the medbay under Doctor Chakwas' supervision since Kaidan had personally carried her stretcher through the medbay's doors about twelve hours earlier—was populated mostly by the off-duty personnel of the currently inactive shifts. They congregated, partially to wish Shepard well, and partially to be kept abreast of the news of the other geth incursions into the Traverse which had shortly followed the activity on Feros. Most of Shepard's ground team was present in the mess as well—everyone that is, except for Wrex. "She'll either get better, or she won't," he had explained to Kaidan when the lieutenant had invited the one-ton mercenary to join him and the other well-wishers in the mess. He had stared at Kaidan with his inscrutable krogan gaze, then turned and walked away, leaving the human without an impression about whether Wrex favored one outcome over the other. Fortunately, the rest of the squad had been more than eager to join the lieutenant, but only, Kaidan had insisted, after getting some much-needed rest for themselves.

That had been almost twelve hours ago now, long enough for everyone to be rested and then some. From the time Kaidan had awoke and checked in on doctor Chakwas, she had repeatedly assured him that Shepard would, "almost certainly," be just fine. She simply wanted to monitor the commander's condition as a mater of prudence. Considering the rather confused and nauseated state in which Shepard had been admitted into the doctor's care, and the lack of anything resembling a medical precedent for the transfer of something like a "Cipher" into a human mind, her caution had seemed warranted to him, even if he would have preferred to have been allowed into the medbay just to check up on her himself.

Though Kaidan had almost immediately relayed the message that Shepard was nearly certain to recover her full cognitive faculties to crew, it had done nothing to put a damper on the outpouring of concern for the newly-minted hero of humanity which had taken the form of the all-night to early-morning vigil of her fellow crewmates and soldiers. It was a testament to _her,_ really, Kaidan mused. Alliance crews were known for being tremendously loyal to their captains and commanding officers, but Shepard had barely been in command for a week—hardly enough time to inspire the kind of devotion that superior officers earned through hard work, fairness, and respect for their crew. But she, she was something different alright, something special... _very_ special. She was humanity's first Spectre for one, that alone made her just about the most popular soldier in the Alliance among the rank and file. And not only that, but her actions were now being lauded among the crew as having saved an entire colony from the geth. _This is how myths begin to take shape_ , he mused. Kaidan, of course, knew more about the reality than most. He knew that she had set the ship's course to Feros under the advice of both Tali and Liara, but that in itself had been a bold command decision. And one that she had apparently got very, very lucky with.

That there was an element of luck behind her success hadn't stopped Kaidan from appreciating the commander in much the same way as the rest of the crew did. She _was_ pretty remarkable, though perhaps her admiring fans didn't yet fully grasp what _truly_ made her so. Her luck would come and go over the course of her career. There _would_ be bad calls, it happened to everybody, but a person's character, _that_ was what really counted—being able to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and know that you acted with integrity. And she _was_ a person of integrity. _More so than even she knows_ , he thought. He could see it in her, in the way she had reacted on Eden Prime—the way she had, without second thought, and purely on instinct, thrown herself into harm's way to protect him. She had been marked by the beacon that day. That was what destiny was _really_ about, not some mumbo jumbo about the gods or the stars. She had acted with integrity, and that act had set her life on a new path. _And now this woman of integrity seems to be interested in me_ , he thought. It figured that he would end up meeting a woman like her when they were both neck deep in _this_ kind of trouble. _Of course, where else could you expect to find such a person?_

He was snapped out of his introspection by Liara, who seated herself in the chair directly to his right.

"She's going to be fine," he said after some time, looking over at her.

"Yes," she stated sympathetically nodding at him with a smile. "She is a remarkable woman, to have drawn all of us to her as she has," she added, turning and surveying the gathering after a moment's uncomfortable silence had passed between them.

Clearly, Liara recognized what made the commander remarkable too. "Very admirable," he said after another pause. "A woman of duty, integrity."

"Yes, I suppose so." Liara politely agreed, sounding as if she was distinctly unconvinced to Kaidan's ears.

"What?" He asked, reading the look of confusion on her face.

"I don't know," she responded, shaking her head "A trivial thought," she added dismissively.

Kaidan leaned in closer and tilted his head in the universal gesture which said, "I want to hear more."

"I just think that... I am not sure what I am trying to say. That somehow she deserves more than duty," Liara finally blurted out.

"That's not her destiny," he informed her with confidence, returning his gaze back out at the crowded mess. "She'd never allow it."

"Perhaps you are right," Liara responded dejectedly just as operations chief Tanaka began turning up the volume on the news-feed which had been playing muted on the large monitor on the far side of the room. It was a ritual that the operations chief had been performing every hour, on the hour for the extent of the vigil. The audio from the newscast effectively brought a swift halt to conversation throughout the room and drew everyone's attention to the screen.

"And for your headlines at the top of the hour," the beautiful, blond anchor seated in front of a Systems Alliance logo on the vid-screen began. "Breaking news in the continuing treason scandal that has been rocking Systems Alliance space. The office of the Judge Advocate General in Vancouver has now invoked the seldom used _Extended Detention_ clause of the Systems Alliance Charter to retain custody of the fourteen members of ExoGeni's board of directors who were arrested yesterday for unknown reasons by military police acting under orders issued by fleet admiral Steven Hackett. Under normal circumstances, persons not currently or formerly enlisted with the Systems Alliance who are arrested by military police must be turned over to the civilian courts within twenty-four hours of the arrest. However, under the Extended Detention clause, the office of the Judge Advocate General may make the determination that Systems Alliance security would be critically compromised by the transfer of the detainees to the civilian court system during wartime. The Systems Alliance parliament now must vote on whether or not to uphold the JAG's decision during a closed session meeting at Arcturus on Tuesday which will decide the legal fates of the executives. Several governmental transparency groups have lodged formal protests against the decision, arguing that all civilians should be tried in civilian courts and calling the military's power to detain such civilians without oversight from civilian courts a, 'dangerous legal standard that should be amended from the Systems Alliance Charter.'" The graphic behind the woman's head faded to black, replaced by the C-Sec logo. "In related news, the Council is now confirming that C-Sec will be launching its own investigation into the actions of ExoGeni Corperation's chief executives, but declined to comment further about the nature of what those actions may be, citing reluctance to divulge sensitive information that could jeopardize any ongoing operations by Council agents. When contacted by ISN the Council's Office of Public Relations would neither confirm nor deny whether the investigation is related to the recent geth attack on the ExoGeni colony world of Feros." The C-Sec logo disappeared, replaced by the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance _Victory Wings_ logo. "Rumors continue to swirl, however, concerning the involvement of newly minted Spectre Rachel Shepard—humanity's first representative in the élite program—in the Alliance operation that repulsed geth forces from Feros. Witnesses claim that she was present on the ExoGeni colony world at the time of the geth attack and may even have been injured during the operation. It is widely assumed the Spectre's current assignment is a manhunt for recently decommissioned Spectre, Saren Arterius, however, the Council has refused to comment on her current assignment." The woman turned to camera two as the feed cut to it, revealing a man and woman who were seated at the news desk with her. "Here to discuss all this and what it means, are Bruce Harrison, former military adviser to prime minister Benjamin Oblonsky and current chairman of the Futures Council, and Asha Lombardi, spokeswoman for The Terra Firma party, a political organization that advocates for greater human independence from alien governments. Welcome to the both of you. First to you, Mr. Harrison, what are we to make of these attacks on human colonies by the geth? Is the Systems Alliance incapable of protecting the Traverse from threats in the nearby Terminus Systems?"

"This is all bull," Ashley spoke over the sound of the broadcast.

"First time you've ever made the news, Chief?" Kaidan called out from his seat at the back of the room.

"I haven't exactly been given much of a chance before, LT," she shot back in an angry tone.

"And why is that?" Garrus asked, his tone soft enough that only the nearby Ashley could hear him. "A soldier of your skill wouldn't have any trouble advancing up the ranks in the _turian_ military."

"The turian military is partly to blame," she said.

"How?" He asked, his tone one more of curiosity than incredulity.

She looked as if she was about say something and then bit her tongue. "Forget about it, Garrus. Get me _real_ drunk sometime and _maybe_ I'll tell you about it. No promises though."

"Hmm." His mandibles clicked. "Buy a pretty lady a drink _and_ get a story out of it... I'm game," he purred in his raspy metallic voice.

"Are you... flirting with me, Garrus?" She asked, her lips forming a wry smirk.

"Who, me? No. Human women aren't really my thing. Too soft and delicate," his tone mocked, "not to mention your _hips_... and those _legs_!"

"You're one to talk, dog legs!" She laughed at him, her voice becoming louder.

"Hush, princess, I can't hear your party's spokeswoman on the vid-screen," operations chief Tanaka shouted, much to the delight of the rest of the crew who began to laugh.

"Screw you, Raymond, I'm not Terra Firma!" She shouted back at him.

"That's 'screw you, Operations Chief Raymond Tanaka,' Gunnery Chief," he came back, his singsong tone indicating that he was more interested in getting her goat than actually enforcing Alliance protocols.

"Ma'am, yes ma'am," Ashley replied with a full parade salute, inciting more howls of laughter from the rest of the deck.

"Settle down, all of you," Kaidan ordered in a stern voice.

"I do not understand," Liara spoke to Kaidan when the laughter had stopped. "Is there some kind of perceived insult in being addressed in the feminine honorific? I thought your species was supposed to have left such bigotry in the past."

"We have... sort of... I guess," he stated, as he realized he couldn't come up with any good reason why it was considered acceptable to address a woman as 'sir' but not a man as 'ma'am.' "It's complicated," he finally pronounced, returning his attention to the vid-screen.

"But, no, I think we have to respect whatever decision the military has made until parliament rules on the matter," the man in the news-feed said.

"What do we know about the nature of these charges?" The anchor asked.

"Very little at this time," the man replied. "It seems like a safe assumption that the arrests of the executive board have something to do with the attack on their colony world, Feros, which preceded the arrests, but we won't know much more, or why commander Shepard may have been present on Feros, until Tuesday."

"Let's talk about that," the anchor said. "What are we to make of these reports of her involvement?"

"Well, it's certainly a rocky start to her career," the man joked. "But we're not likely to get anymore out of the Council about it until long after whatever operation she may be engaged in is long over, if then."

"Commander Shepard is symptomatic of the concessionist mindset that pervades our society these days," the Terra Firma spokeswoman interrupted. "Concessions to the Council, concessions to the batarians, humanity's best and brightest now serve alien interests instead of our own in this critical hour when we need them most to protect us from the geth menace." This elicited howls of derision from the crew.

"With all due respect, Commander Shepard is out there right now putting her life on the line to serve humanity's interests," the man responded.

"She serves the Council now," the woman corrected. "There's a difference. We don't know where her loyalties lie anymore."

"That _bitch_!" Ashley shouted at the vid-screen.

"Calm down, Chief," Kaidan said. "She has every right to speak her mind."

"She has every right to pull my _boot_ out of her ass," Ashley said, walking up to the vid-screen.

The crew laughed again as Ashley closed out the newsfeed and the sound dropped to silence, the holo display returning to its default display of time, date, and other miscellaneous information about the _Normandy's_ status.

"Ah, c'mon, Chief, we was all watch'n that!" Tanaka complained.

"Well, _we_ were watching it. It looked more to me like you were watching the cut of that anchor's blouse," Garrus chimed in.

Kaidan watched the three verbally sparing soldiers in silence until his omni-tool chimed him. Bringing the omni up to check his messages he found a brief note from Dr. Chakwas.

{

Received: Today, 0923.24

From: Chief Med Tech Karin Chakwas MD _Normandy_ SR1

Signature: Verified

Message: Releasing Shepard. Come see her in Medbay. Bring Liara.

Reply | More Options

}

Kaidan rose up out of his seat and looked over at Liara. "Come on, it's time to go see her," he said.

"Not so fast, LT." Ashely bounded up next to the pair. "You two think you're the _only_ ones Shepard wants to see?" She asked pointing at her omni-tool and smiling wryly at the two.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Shepard's visitors entered the medbay unaccompanied by doctor Chakwas who had taken the opportunity to make a trip to the mess upon learning that the mess sergeant had been brewing a continuous stream of fresh coffee for the well-wishers assembled there.

The medbay seemed oddly quiet to Liara, who hadn't returned to her new home in the back of the _Normandy's_ medbay since Shepard had been committed to the doctor's care, spending the night instead inside one of the common-use sleeper pods that were available to supplement the crew's personal quarters.

Shepard stood in the middle of the silence, her back to the visitors, her foot resting on a chair, lacing up her boots.

"Hey," she said in a soft voice as the group approached her.

"You're looking pretty good, Skip," Ashley said. "That asari mumbo jumbo didn't mess you up too bad."

"I'm OK," she stated flatly.

"I'm surprised you let Doctor Chakwas keep you in here for so long," Kaidan said.

"She's a good doc. Knows what she's doing," Shepard replied with little enthusiasm.

"But now you're free," he stated. "What's the first order of business?"

"Report to Hackett," she stated matter-of-factly, finishing up her shoelaces and turning to toward the visitors, her hands on her hips. "Then see if we can pick up a lead on Saren. He must have left his fingerprints around here somewhere in all this mess. Gonna hafta report to the Council sometime too. You just know they're gonna love this."

"You don't think that they'll..." Kaidan trailed off.

"Be pissed enough to revoke my status? No. At least, I doubt it. The geth are repulsed at the very least. That's thanks to us. And especially you and Tali," she added nodding at Liara. "We got here just in time."

"Never put anything past the Council," Ashley quipped. "They couldn't see the truth if it was stapled to their foreheads. Which actually sounds like a pretty good idea, now that I think of it."

"Good point," Shepard agreed chuckling. "I guess I had better get it over with. Thanks for coming by," she said, smiling and patting both Ashley and Kaidan on the shoulders. "Could I have a minute or two alone with Liara?" She asked, her tone earnest.

"Of course," Kaidan quickly agreed for the both of them, giving the back of Ashley's uniform a little tug, encouraging the reluctant looking woman to accompany him to the exit.

When the two had departed, Shepard wandered over to the stasis tube in the corner of the medbay and laid her hand down on the cool metal surface of the cylinder, the tips of her fingers tracing the almost invisible seam of the sealed shutters up the length of the tube. She gazed into the reflective black surface of the cold object.

"This is..." Liara began formulating the question but trailed off as if unable to complete her thought. Shepard nodded.

"She was not to blame for any of this," Liara stated.

"I know," Shepard replied.

"Then she communicated to you..." Liara let another unfinished question hang in the air.

"Indoctrination," Shepard stated, and then added, "tell me a little bit about her."

"Shiala?" Liara began reluctantly. "She was one of my mother's most gifted students. A talented biotic, and studious devotee of Siarist philosophy. Perhaps her exceptional gift at melding was why Saren chose her for... Why Benezia chose her for..." Liara's voice began to break up as she hung her head.

"We'll try to do better, where your mother is concerned." Shepard turned toward the asari laying a hand on her shoulder.

"I can't believe that she would do this. Would use Shiala as a resource, a disposable means to an end. That's not the woman I knew, Shepard," Liara said, looking up, her gaze returning to Shepard's eyes.

"It's the indoctrination," Shepard said trying to console her. "If we're going to have any hope of helping her we have to learn all we can about it." She removed her hand turned back to the tube. "That's why I'm going to have Shiala's body sent back to the Citadel for study. This won't upset any asari funerary customs will it?"

"No..."Liara stated, and then added another, more emphatic, "no," shaking her head at the dark tube. "Siarists believe that the body is just a vessel," she added. "Though if it is not too much to ask, I would like some time alone with her elohan."

"Elo han?" Shepard asked gently, bringing up her omni-tool and selecting the untranslated word which the rudimentary omni-tool VI had flagged for her convenience in the recent events stream.

{

Elohan

noun

LANGUAGE - Armali (asari)

Definition: That which has been poured out from. Referring to the body of a deceased person. Usually left untranslated to emphasize difference from serinta (sense, physical: body, corpse) or terina (sense, medical: cadaver).

ORIGIN - Ancient

Oldest recorded use of elohan is the book of Lucen where the term is used to refer to the body of the dead priestess, Quierenta, and is used throughout the sacred texts of the Athame doctrine. Frequency of use reaches a peak in the epic poetry of the third period but use falls away sharply in the so-called "priestly" fourth period. Popularity of the term resurges when it is appropriated by Siarist philosophers and mystics to refer to the state of the physical being after the spirit has departed to join the universal consciousness of nature. The term has similar cognates in all sixteen asari languages which are still spoken.

Controversy: Some universal translators render the term as "empty vessel," however asari linguistic and cultural experts often argue this translation places undue emphasis on the "emptiness" of the body where the spirit of the original term places more emphasis on the fact that body was once full.

}

"Elohan," Shepard stated when she was through reading, looking back up into Liara's eyes. "That's a very beautiful sounding word."

"There are... a few rituals that I know it would have pleased her to have known that they were performed on her behalf." Liara spoke solemnly. "It is... sentimental perhaps, but..."

"Liara. It's fine. You perform whatever rituals you need to perform here. It's time for me go and face the music anyway. I've moped in here for long enough. God knows failures can't be fixed by moping."

"Failures?" Liara asked.

"Her," Shepard stated, nodding in the direction of Shiala's stasis pod, "the colonists. Hell, even the Thorian. Casualties are a fact of the job, but that doesn't mean it doesn't sting a little." She smiled at Liara. "That's a secret between just you me," she added. "Since we're such _good friends_ and all that... speaking of which." Her smile quickly faded and her tone became serious. "Look I'm sorry that I left you alone like that. That was a major failure of command, leaving you alone like that. And all because I..."

" _You_ are sorry?" Liara interrupted her. "I thought for sure that _you_ would be the one to admonish _me_ for allowing myself to be captured like that."

"We're weak when we're alone like I left you. That's why we stick together, as a team. Well, when I'm not too busy throwing myself a pity party, to forget that fact," she cursed herself before turning to Liara and laying a hand on her shoulder. "If you don't want to serve under my command again, I'll understand. I let you down in the most fundamental way a solider can let another soldier down. I'm sorry. So much for the myth of Spectre perfection."

Liara leaned forward and hugged the woman. Shepard stood, stiff and awkward, until her arms finally found themselves wrapped around Liara in return. "It's OK," Liara reassured her, whispering in ear. "You did well, you saved as many as you could."

"I know that," Shepard said, breaking the hug and peeling Liara off of her. "I just like to, take a little time to remember the lost, is all... but thanks, that was... sweet."

The two of them stared at each other in silence until Liara spoke. "Shepard, about the Cipher..." she trailed off.

"I'm not really ready to meld yet," Shepard replied. "I think I'm still processing all of this," she added in a surprisingly sheepish tone for the stalwart woman.

"Of course," Liara said, eager to oblige the commander. "Whenever you feel ready."

Shepard smiled and nodded. Changing subjects she began, "I read through Kaidan's report while Dr. Chakwas had me caged up in here."

"And?" Liara asked.

"Well, I'm interested in what happened to you when you were abducted. The report mentions that you overheard some voices talking. And that it was a Doctor Jensen who was your abductor?"

"That was what I was able to gather from the partial conversations I overheard," Liara confirmed. "Admittedly I had very little to work with."

"I looked through ExoGeni's records," Shepard continued. "There was a Doctor Jensen on staff at Zhu's Hope. He's currently being held with most of the rest of the senior ExoGeni personnel on board the _Shasta_. I'm definitely going to have a little chat with the man. Would you like to come along when I do?"

"I admit to being more than a little curious about his motivations. If you think that I could be of some assistance..."

"Absolutely. I'll let you know before I depart for the _Shasta_ then. Despite being a Spectre it would be better to clear it with her captain first. I'll let you know when we have the go ahead. But right now," her body stiffened, "it's time to swallow some pride and report in to the Council. I've got to go play the stalwart Commander Shepard, the rock that never falters."

She gathered her things and began to depart.

"Time to go put on a brave face, right?" She smiled at Liara. "Listen, thanks for... being a friend. It's nice to have somebody I can talk to."

"Anytime, Commander," Liara said smiling back at her.

"It's just Shepard to you. Unless you want me calling you Doctor."

"That would not do among such _close_ friends now, would it?" Liara teased.

"I don't suppose so," Shepard said, returning her smile and turning to step out of the medbay.

"And Shepard," Liara said before the woman could leave. "I do not think that anybody would think less of you if they found out that you mourn for the lost. Caring is not a weakness. Some may even think _more_ highly of you."

Shepard paused for a moment. "I'll think about it," she finally said, though sounding to Liara as if she didn't really intend to ever do so, and walked out of the medbay.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Of course the colony is secure." Councilor Sparatus' metallic voice stabbed into her gut, inciting her anger, as she stood before the holographic projection of the galaxy's three most powerful people. "We knew this before we _rushed_ into granting her Spectre status. Her psych profile said as much; Shepard would go to any lengths to secure a _human_ colony."

She swallowed hard and tried to put her anger behind her. "Being human had nothing to do with it. They were in trouble; I tried to help."

"Admirable," Councilor Valern replied. "But as a Spectre, the mission must come first. Please tell us that protection of System Alliance assets wasn't the _only_ task you managed to accomplish."

Shepard gritted her teeth. "They're not assets. They're people."

"A poor choice of words," Councilor Tevos apologized on behalf of the salarian. "But the question still remains. Were you able to find anything that might lead you to Saren?"

"Maybe," Shepard replied.

"Maybe?" Spartus parroted her with derision.

"Yes, maybe. As my report stated, I made extended... _contact_ with one of Matriarch Benezia's acolytes."

"Ah yes, more _Prothean_ visions," Sparatus mocked. "I'm beginning to think that you'll never present us with _any_ evidence that isn't all in your head."

"I am interested in hearing her testimony about her meld with Shiala," Tevos stated, seeming to disagree with the turian Councilor. Valern merely nodded his assent when she looked over at him. "Please, continue, Commander."

"Shiala showed me many things... what she knew about Saren, why the geth follow him..." The councilors exchanged looks. "But the most disturbing thing she shared with me concerns his flagship, Sovereign. It's not geth in origin, maybe it's even Reaper technology," she offered. Sparatus scoffed. "It has the power to control minds."

"This is _too_ much," Sparatus interrupted.

" _No_ , it's not. Listen to me," Shepard ordered. "This ancient ship has the power to control minds, to make Saren seem more convincing to those that have spent time in its presence. That's why Matriarch Benezia, joined him. Originally she had planned to influence _him,_ to turn him away from violence. But he ended up taming her instead."

"And how do you know that any of this is the truth?" Sparatus asked. "This asari could have lied to you, to make you more sympathetic to Benezia. You have no experience with such things."

"I trust her, because, well... I trust Liara... and she also melded with Shiala, and she assures me that Shiala was being truthful."

"You trust the testimony of Matriarch Benezia's daughter concerning one of the matriarch's own acolytes? This is _not_ a promising start to your reasoning," the normally quiet salarian councilor interjected.

"Look, Councilors. I trust Liara because, well... You're never going to accept this but... I've melded with her."

"How deeply?" The asari councilor asked.

"Deep enough," Shepard answered.

"I see." Tevos said sounding quite surprised. "Then I am inclined to believe your testimony, or, at least, I am inclined to grant you leeway to pursue this as you see fit."

"Thank you, Councilor," Shepard replied, shocked to have wrested that much out of her.

"You mentioned that you also had information concerning the motivations of the geth," Valern stated.

"The geth follow Saren because they see the Reapers as some kind of gods. He's the prophet for their return."

"Saren is using the idea of the Reapers to manipulate the geth," Sparatus pronounced.

"I don't think so, Councilor," Shepard replied.

"Saren is a charismatic individual," Tevos added. "He may have invented the story of the Reapers as a means for controlling the geth."

"Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one..." Shepard began hesitantly, trying her hand at arguing. "The Reapers are real."

"What is the simpler explanation?" Valern asked. "That Saren invented the Reapers to manipulate the geth, or that a race of hyper-advanced machines wiped out the Protheans 50,000 years ago and then _vanished_ into thin air?"

"You're forgetting Tali's recording," Shepard said.

"Which the quarian retrieved from the memory module of a geth that was _serving_ Saren," Valern said, leaving her feeling disarmed by the salarian's quick mind. "However, it is not the place of the Council to dictate how a Spectre chooses to operate," he added after a pause. "We have granted your division lenience to follow your prerogative."

"Then I _will_ , Councilor," Shepard stated again.

"Very well then; if there is nothing more?" Sparatus asked, sounding impatient to rid himself of the discussion.

"Nothing more to report at this time, Councilor," Shepard replied.

"And, Commander Shepard," Tevos added. "May the Goddess smile upon the both of you," she stated before closing the comm.

_What the hell is that supposed to mean?_ She thought as she began to call up the link to Systems Alliance command on Arcturus.

"Commander," Hackett's voice spoke as his face filled the large two-dimensional screen, an indication that he wasn't near a holo-projector. "Good to see you've recovered from that business with the Cipher."

"I see you've been kept well-informed," Shepard said.

"Lieutenant Alenko filed the operations report in your absence. I was unsure if we were going to get anything at all with your mission being officially Citadel business."

"He's Alliance to the core, Admiral. As far as he's concerned, this is still an Alliance op. The Alliance ordered him to follow a Spectre, and it's ultimately the Alliance he still reports to. To be honest, I'm not sure if he even thinks the Spectres are a good idea."

"Spectre or no, that was a nice piece of work. From you _and_ your entire team. You saved a lot lives by giving us that early warning."

"You actually have a quarian and an asari to thank for that, sir."

"I _saw_ that in the report," Hackett stated approvingly. "Be sure to pass on our gratitude to the both of them."

"I will," Shepard said, nodding curtly before asking a question of her own. "But I'm curious, Admiral. How did you get the ExoGeni board to spill the beans about the Thorian?"

"A plea bargain of sorts. We promised not to extradite them to the Council. Turian prisons still scare a lot of people who remember the war. And they knew they had screwed up bad when we contacted them about the geth on Feros. There was some dissension among their ranks; a few defectors came to us when they knew the truth was bound to come out sooner or later, looking for leniency in exchange for information."

"The Council isn't going to like that," Shepard replied.

"No," Hackett agreed. "But there's nothing they can do. Arcturus and the Sol system are still special legal zones until 2191."

"Useful," Shepard stated.

"We'll play that card while we still have it," Hackett replied, nodding his head in agreement. "But what's more important right now is what we've learned from the board. They had made a deal with Saren alright... allowed his people to access the Thorian in exchange for favors—money, technology, and few deals with some of the companies Saren has clout with. We're investigating all those leads. But there's something that you can do for us right there on Feros. The board apparently didn't expect a geth attack. When they lost contact with the colony, they had initially assumed that it was a technical malfunction, caused by a routine maintenance operation that was being run on the equipment."

"Did they know that Saren is allied with geth?" Shepard asked.

"No, and we're trying to keep that fact hush, hush." He said sternly. "People are worked up enough about these geth incursions as it is. We don't need to add a rogue Spectre on top of that. We suspect that Saren must have had an inside man, someone who sabotaged the equipment right before the geth showed up." Shepard listened patiently. "Our top suspect is a man named Ethan Jeong. He was originally responsible for coordinating with Saren's people, and it was _his_ employee ID that signed off on the illegal maintenance order which brought the whole colony's communications system down just before the geth showed up. Our boys arrested him several hours ago and are holding him on board the _Shasta_. As a civilian, he thinks he's entitled to every damn right on the books, and he's not talking until he sees a civilian lawyer."

"You gonna pull an Extend Detention on him?" She asked.

"Only if I have to. I'm hoping you might be able get what we need out of him, actually," the admiral replied, his tone optimistic.

"You... want me to interrogate him?" Shepard probed tentatively.

"I'm not telling you to rough him up or anything, just scare him a little," Hackett clarified. "The general public tends to be pretty nervous around Spectres, and for _good_ reason. Use that. I've cleared you for access to the _Shasta_. They'll be expecting you."

"I'll get to the bottom of it, sir," she said with authority.

"See that you do. Hackett out," he said closing the connection.

_See that you do._ A demand. She smiled. Now, that was what she _liked_ about him, he hadn't started treating her different now that she was a Spectre.

She composed a quick text message to Liara on her omni-tool

{

To: Dr. Liara T'Soni (SA-NET civilian guest) - OFFLINE

Subject: blank

Message: Here's what we know so far. ExoGeni made a deal with Saren, gave him access to the Thorian. But they hadn't expected the geth attack. So apparently Saren's betrayed them. For what reason? I'm presuming that he probably didn't want anybody else getting access to the Cipher, but we should keep our minds open to other ideas. I've got authorization, and we're going over to the _Shasta_ to talk to somebody called Ethan Jeong. In addition to being Saren's contact for the ExoGeni board, his name was also on the maintenance order that shut down the colony's communications just before the geth showed up. A bit too fishy to be a coincidence. Where Dr. Jensen fits into all this, I can't say, but we'll talk to him too. Meet me in the hanger bay ASAP.

}

The instant she had pressed the send button her omni-tool pinged her, asking for her attention to an entry in her events stream.

{

Message to Dr. Liara T'Soni could not be delivered.

User is not currently on network.

Last seen Yesterday at 1934.54

Send Message When User Is Online | Save Message | Discard | More Options

}

She nearly slapped herself. _What am I thinking? Her omni got fried._ Reviewing the message, _there_ was the bright red 'offline' flag next to Liara's name in the message's 'to' field. God, I _need to learn to read_ , she thought to herself, shaking her head at her own stupidity before using her own omni to access the ship's PA system.

"Doctor T'Soni please meet me in the armory. Dr. T'Soni to the armory," she spoke into the comm. The words rang out through the ship seconds later.

She would have to requisition one of the Alliance standard issue omni-tools for Liara until the woman could find a suitable replacement for herself. _Maybe on the Citadel, when we drop of Shiala's... Elohan_ , she reasoned.


	9. Web of Lies (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two of this now multi-chapter behemoth. I recommend paying close attention, as it might be a tad confusing if you're not feeling sharp today. I quoted Sir Walter Scott's "tangled web" for a reason! There are plans within plans... Everybody has their own motives here, Saren, The ExoGeni BOD, The Thorian, Ethan, Dr. Jensen... and a few players who have yet to be revealed. *dramatic music sting*

"You Ethan Jeong?" Shepard asked the balding man who was sitting in the corner of the sparse detention cell as she stepped through the door.

"No, I'm the Easter Bunny," the man replied, his nasally and high-pitched voice detracting from any kind of cool confidence the rebellious answer was supposed to provide.

"Hilarious," Shepard replied sarcastically, shifting her datapad from one hand to the other.

"You can laugh your way right back out that door," he said, waving her away. "I've told you a hundred times, I'm not talking until I get a lawyer."

"Close that door," Shepard spoke in a hushed tone to the guard outside the cell.

She watched as the old-fashioned, manual door slid shut, slowing blocking the view of Liara, who was waiting patiently in the hall outside the cell. The locking mechanism clamped shut with both an electronic lock and the old-fashioned bolt mechanism which the guard manually turned, producing an ominous ratcheting sound.

"Is that supposed to scare me?" The man asked in indignation.

"Jeong," Shepard stated flatly, not moving an inch from where she had stopped inside the cell. "Look at me."

The man looked up at her face.

"Do you recognize me?" She asked.

The man continued to look at her in silence for several moments before finally spitting out, "Shepard... you're that woman they made Spectre."

"That's right." She nodded. "And I'm not here on behalf of the _Alliance_. I'm here because the _Council_ has questions."

The man's face sagged as he seemed to realize the gravity of his situation.

"Thing is," she continued. "We already know _all_ about the deal you brokered with Saren on behalf of the ExoGeni board... They let you read the news in here, Jeong?" She asked.

"No," came his brief reply.

"Well, I want you to read the news. Here." She handed him the datapad she had been carrying. "Go ahead, check the headlines... any news service you want."

She waited patiently as Jeong browsed the extranet through the datapad, his face twisting and becoming more and more upset with time.

"Christ," he finally said, putting the datapad down on the bench beside him.

"What the media doesn't know is that your bosses found a pretty sweet way to cover their asses... which included selling you out of course. They're gonna be doing time alright, but it will be in a _human_ prison. Have you ever seen what a _turian_ prison is like?" She asked rhetorically. "The Hierarchy runs the majority of the Council's prisons. But _you_ knew that, right? Batarian terrorists, salarian medical criminals, asari who could rip you apart with just a single thought... not to mention what the _elcor_ get up too in those places." She shuddered. "Crimes severe enough to fall under Council jurisdiction..." She shook her head. "Nasty bunch of criminals. I hear asari prisons are very well run," she added offhandedly. "Too bad the Council doesn't use _them_ to run their prisons... Turians... Turians just don't have a lot of sympathy for lawbreakers, it's not in their blood."

"OK, OK, I get it," Jeong said. "What are you offering?"

"I'm not offering you any kinda plea bargain. I don't have any authority to," she said, finally walking over the to the bench at the opposite end of the cell from Jeong and seating herself. "But what I _could_ do is take you into custody as a Spectre, hand you over to the Council. I might just be inclined to do that if you're particularly uncooperative."

"Great, just great," the man practically stuttered out the words.

"But if you make this easy for me... you could be headed back to Arcturus on the _Emden_ by this time tomorrow. What happens to you from there, I can't say. But I _can_ tell you that you've already got yourself _life_ in an Alliance prison for what you did to those colonists. You can't _possibly_ make things worse for yourself with them. And I don't _actually_ have to mention you in my report to the Council..." She reached up and nonchalantly twirled some of her dark black hair around one of her fingers. "They don't really care _how_ the Spectres get things done, so long as they get done. If C-Sec doesn't take note of you... who knows, you just might get lucky."

"You can't offer me the same deal you gave the board?" He pleaded.

"I told you, I'm not authorized to offer you anything, but maybe I can put in a good word with Hackett, the admiral in charge of this operation. Maybe he'd be inclined to offer you the same deal he gave them," she lied, knowing full well that Jeong was ineligible for the same asylum granted to the BOD, because his crime hadn't been committed in the special legal zone of the Sol and Arcturus Stream systems.

"OK... OK..." He paused and shook his head up and down again, as if trying to convince himself of something. "OK."

"OK," Shepard said bluntly, staring back at him and waiting.

"OK," He replied again.

"Uh-huh, OK," Shepard came back, sounding as if she had infinite patience.

"What do you want to know?" He asked, finally composing himself.

"Let's start from the top," she said. "I want to see how well your story matches what we got from the board."

"OK," Jeong said.

"OK," Shepard repeated again, almost cracking a smile at the man's new favorite vocabulary word. "Let's hear the story."

"About Saren or the Thorian?" Jeong asked.

"Saren," she replied.

"The board gave me his contact information," Jeong began, looking down at his feet. "A one-time channel. I never met him. He dealed only through intermediaries, agents. And we never gave him the location of the Thorian either. I don't know how he knew it existed in the first place. You'd have to ask the board. I just knew that I wasn't supposed to tell him _where_ on Feros it was." Shepard nodded her approval at him when he looked up at her. "Eventually he agreed to send one of his agents, an asari, Shiala. She was the only one we ever let interact with the Thorian, and even then, she was always brought before the Thorian in a sealed tube. Sound proofed, and with inertial dampeners so that she couldn't tell how she was being moved."

"So you were cautious, I get it," Shepard said during a pause.

"Very," he stated with earnestness. "Only a _few_ high-ranking people knew of the Thorian's existence. Well, and the colonists at Zhu's Hope... but they weren't going to tell anybody." He laughed lightly and looked up at Shepard who scowled back at him. "Sorry, as I was saying," he continued, "she was Saren's intermediary. Eventually she just returned one day and said that our business was at an end. That Saren was grateful for our cooperation and that all that remained was for her to join with the Thorian, as the final part of the deal."

"And you we're OK with this?" Shepard asked in exasperation.

"I thought it was _crazy_!" He conceded. "But I wasn't about complain if she wanted to crawl down there with that thing and never come out again."

"Ha!" Shepard laughed suddenly, eliciting a surprised and confused reaction from Jeong. "The Thorian duped you. You know that, right?" She stated.

"Duped me?" He asked, staring back, dumbfounded.

"Part of the deal that the Thorian made with Saren's agent was to have the geth exterminate the rest of the ExoGeni colony... minus Zhu's Hope, of course."

"What? How do you know that?" He asked in disbelief.

"I learned it from Shiala, but that's not important. What _is_ important is that Saren betrayed it too."

"Why would it want to kill us?" He asked, looking off into the corner of the cell as if in thought.

"According to what Shiala showed me, it perceived you as a threat, just because you knew of its existence. It planned to pack up shop with the rest of the Zhu's Hope colonists and transplant a seedling of itself somewhere else in the galaxy," she waved her hand around in circles. "It didn't think like you or I do, our tactics are astonishingly fast-paced to it. It had a much _longer-term_ perspective. It would have been happy just to lay low again with a colony of breeding thralls for hundreds of years. It thrived on secrecy, not combat."

"How do you know all of this?" Jeong demanded. "Our scientists haven't been able to get _anything_ out of it."

"I melded with Shiala," Shepard stated bluntly.

"Huh," Jeong said, seemly distracted from his troubles for just a second. "We never considered anything like that... So that's why the geth attacked us," he said in astonishment after a pause. "Saren... and the geth..." He trailed off, apparently mulling over the implications.

"Big surprise for you... when the geth showed up?" She asked.

"Surprise? I think I almost had a stroke," he snortled.

"Remember, when I asked you to make this easy for me? Well that included not lying straight to my face," she said, her tone becoming stern.

"What?" he asked, looking back at her, his brow creased.

"Let's not fuck around here," she said curtly. "Your ID was used to sign off on the illegal maintenance order that shut down the colony's communications, just minutes before the geth invaded. Running maintenance on both the primary and back up systems at the same time is a violation of..."

"My ID?" He interrupted. "But... but... that's impossible!"

"So fucking impossible that it's exactly what happened," she shot back. "ExoGeni gave us the logs from right before they lost the signal. _Your_ ID authorizes the order."

"But I... I didn't do that," he said, his face taking on a pitiful expression.

"Then who else has access to your code?" She asked, as if she didn't believe a word he was saying.

"No-one, at at at least they shouldn't!" He stuttered. "I must have been hacked or something!"

"That would be hard to prove, considering that you _also_ ordered the full destruction of the _entire_ computer system. Or do you deny having issued that command as well?" She asked, sneering at him.

"No, I initiated the self-destruction procedure when the geth invaded," he stated with confidence.

"Convenient," she replied.

"You have to understand, the criminal evidence on our computer system..." he trailed off. "The whole system was designed to be thoroughly wiped if the need arose."

"The wipe was only partially successful," she informed him.

"I know," he replied. "The procedure aborted before the system could be thermally destroyed. I don't know why. I had to flee the building at that point! Everything was a panic!"

"Alliance techs are digging through what's left of it now." She paused. "They're good at what they do," she added as if it was a threat.

"Good. I didn't issue that maintenance order," he declared.

"Then who did?" She asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"You're not scoring a lot of point here, Jeong. When I was at Zhu's Hope, Fai Dan himself told me that _you_ had assured him that a distress call had been sent."

"Fai Dan said that?" He asked, his expression perplexed for a second. "Oh wait, _yes_. I told him it had."

She rolled her eyes. "Why lie to him about that, Jeong?" She asked her tone becoming more cross.

" _Well_ , I was just _about_ to send the distress call personally. I didn't _know_ that our comms were down at that time. So I, so I... lied to him. Anything to get him to shut up! I didn't have time to _talk_ to him, geth were invading!"

"And why didn't you contact him when you found out that the comms were down?" She asked.

" _Fai Dan_ wasn't exactly my top priority at that point."

"No, covering your tracks by frying the computer network was," she said, throwing one hand up in the air and tilting her head sideways to express her frustration.

"You're right," he said enthusiastically, leaping from his chair the index finger of his right extended in exclamation. "Except I wasn't hiding any evidence of a comm system failure. I was trying to destroy any information about the Thorian. Look, Spectre, someone else issued that command with my ID."

"Who?" She asked again, practically shouting at the excited man who was now standing at the opposite side of the room.

"I don't know... I don't know..." he said pacing back and forth before seating himself again. "Maybe Jensen."

Her ears perked up. "Jensen, why?"

"I don't know, it's just a hunch... something always seemed... not right with him."

"You've gotta do better than that," she said exasperated, shaking her head.

"Well, he just... I don't know... He did visit the main office a lot. But that's not where his job was... He was just a real _weirdo_ if you ask me. Who else would volunteer to work at Zhu's Hope?" He asked. "The company flew him in from off world when the Thorian was discovered. It was _his_ idea to let it continue to infect the colonists at Zhu's Hope, to study the reaction, understand the nature of its control. He took precautions to avoid exposure himself.

Shepard stood up. "Alright, Jeong. I'm gonna go talk to him. If I find out you've been lying..." she cracked the knuckles on both her hands.

"You wont!" he said desperately. Everything I've told you has been the truth.

"You'd better hope so," she said, as she knocked on the door.

The door slid open and she stepped back out into the corridor.

"Were you able to obtain anything useful from him?" Liara asked.

"Maybe," she said, smirking back her. "We're definitely going to go give your doctor friend a call at this point."

~.~.~.~.~.~

"This is Jensen, ma'am," the officer reported, hauling the cuffed man into the _Shasta's_ interrogation room by his arms.

"Ah, commander Shepard," the man said, quickly taking a seat across the table from the commander and Liara, as he recovered from the shove the officer had given him. "I should have figured as much. And doctor T'Soni too, of course." He frowned and heaved a deep sigh.

"So you obviously know why we're here," Shepard said cutting straight to the chase, as the guard behind him deactivated his omni-restraints.

"You want to know how it came to be that Dr. T'Soni wound up locked up in my clinic's closet," he replied. The guard left the room, but not before making eye contact with Shepard, who nodded her OK at the man as he sealed the door.

"Yeah, that about covers it," she said, returning her attention to Dr. Jensen. "Enlighten me."

"One moment," the man said courteously and then crossed himself while muttering something. "Where were we, oh yes. Well it's fairly simple really, I received a message from my contact, ordering me to keep her safe for the geth." The man grinned at the two them with a euphoric and stupid smile.

"You think this is funny?" Shepard asked, perturbed. "Don't be an _ass_ , start at the beginning," she said angrily.

"Hmm?" He asked, leaning his head forward and retaining his stupid grin.

"I said start at the beginning," she repeated herself. "Why do you even _have_ a contact to begin with? What were you up to?"

"Oh, no I don't see where we are beginning the contact," he said.

"What?" She ask, her brow creasing in frustration.

"They always take the ones with the little things on their heads first, cause that's how they find out the way to get to the roof where we have to be now..." The man began to slur his words and slouch over in his chair.

"Oh, Christ!" Shepard exclaimed, leaping from her seat and dashing over to the door, pounding on the metal surface until the clearly frightened guard had it open.

"Medical emergency! We've got a medical emergency!" She shouted. "The man's poisoned himself or something!"

By the time the Shasta's chief medical officer had arrived on the scene the attending nurse had already pronounced Dr. Jensen dead after a myriad of attempts to resuscitate him had been tried, failed and been tried again in desperation, resulting in failure for a second time.

"Ah, here we go," the nurse exclaimed as he bent over the man's corpse, peering into his glassy eyes with a magnifying light from his medical omni. "It was hidden inside his ocular implant. Made to look like just part of his enhanced retina. Very nice work," he added with a tone of admiration. "You'd never detect this without an extensive search... and the retina is top of the line too."

"Alright, get him bagged," the chief medical officer ordered. "Looks like we'll be performing an autopsy tonight..." she muttered to herself. "We'll let you know what the results turn up," she added, turning to Shepard, who had been watching the proceedings since the first nurse had arrived on the scene.

"I want a full report," Shepard said.

"Aye, aye, ma'am. You'll have it before 0800 tomorrow," the doctor confirmed.

Shepard turned to the officer who had stood guard outside the door. "You have his omni-tool in lockup, I presume?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied with a swift nod.

"Then I want that sent over to the _Normandy_ , ASAP."

"I'll, ah... have to clear that with captain Su first," the man said.

"You do that," she replied. "And tell captain Su to clear it with admiral Hackett if he has any problems." The man nodded and headed off down the hall. Shepard got onto her comm. "Tali," she spoke.

"Shepard?" The quarian's high-pitched voice came back after a brief pause.

"Tali, Liara and I are coming back down on the shuttle. I want you to meet us in the hanger bay when we arrive... and bring anything you think you might need to investigate a computer system."

"Ooh, this sounds like it might be something fun," she replied coyly.

Shepard let a brief chuckle out. "Only for you," she replied warmly. "But this _is_ pretty important, Tali. I'm hoping you can save our asses again," she added in a more serious tone.

"You can count on me, Shepard!" The quarian replied with every indication that the pride in her voice was sincere.

"We'll meet you in the hanger. Shepard out," she said closing the comm.


	10. Web of Lies (Part Three)

Shepard sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee, staring at the bewildering array of documents, folders, and logs on her computer screen. Tali had pulled through, alright. When the commander had asked the spry little quarian to forensically recover whatever data she could from the computers in Dr. Jensen's clinic, she hadn't expected the torrent of material that Tali had produced. And more kept pouring in all the time, especially now that Dr. Jensen's omni-tool had been sent over from the _Shasta_. She felt as if she ought to order Tali to take a break, but the young woman seemed too content working on the project. Shepard on the other hand, the icons on her computer screen were beginning to dance in front of her eyes.

" _I'm_ the one who needs a break," she declared, getting up from her chair, and walking out of her quarters for a tour around the ship.

Jensen, Jeong, Saren, the Thorian... _They all have their own angle, their own agenda,_ she thought as she wandered the halls of the _Normandy_ , headed toward the ship's mess. _Jeong, he's a slimy little worm. But even worms will tell the truth when their hide is on the line. He might be telling the truth—it doesn't seem like he has much more he can lose, and maybe a lot to gain by being truthful, if he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in a turian prison that is—or he may be lying. He could have something more at stake, an ulterior motive._

As she approached the mess hall she began to hear the sounds of multitudinous laughter from the crewmen assembled there. Drawing nearer, her ears singled out Ashley's voice from the din.

"So the commander's staring up at this Thorian _thing_ ," she heard Ashley saying. "Her eyes bugg'en out of her head, and then, get this, she says, 'we come in peace!'"

The mess exploded with laughter again.

"I thought for sure she was gonna say, 'take us to your leader,' next!" Ashley shouted over the laughter as Shepard drew nearer to the mess.

"She did just fine!" Shepard could hear Kaidan saying, though not without a hint of his shared merriment in his tone.

"Oh don't get me wrong, LT, she did great! Just, damn, if that wasn't the funniest thing I've heard in a long time," Ashley said.

Shepard passed by the entrance to the mess without looking in, deciding not to make things awkward for the relaxing crew. Instead, she changed course and chose to head for Liara's room in the back of the medbay.

She found the medbay itself dark and quiet—Dr. Chakwas must have gone to sleep—and walking the length of the bay without engaging the illumination, she knocked on the door of the closet that served as Liara's quarters.

"Shepard." Liara stated with apparent confusion as she opened the door for the commander.

"Did I come by at a bad time?" Shepard asked in response.

"No." Liara stated flatly. "I simply was not expecting you. Please, come in," she said, standing out-of-the-way as Shepard entered the room and took a seat on the edge of Liara's cot. "Is there something you need?" Liara asked.

"Huh? No," Shepard replied, "just taking a break, stopping by to chat. You sure I'm not bothering you?"

"Oh no, not at all. What topic would you like to converse about?" Liara said awkwardly, pulling up her chair and sitting down, facing the commander in rapt attention.

Shepard laughed. "I just meant some small talk. I don't think we need an explicit discussion topic," she said.

Liara blushed. "Very _few_ people have come to me simply to talk about nothing before. I am afraid I must be a rather boring conversationalist. I know very little outside of my area of expertise."

"Well how 'bout we talk about _you_ then?" Shepard suggested. "That must be a topic you know something about."

" _Me_?" Liara replied with surprise. "I am afraid I am _not_ very interesting. I have spent the entirety of my adult life studying, or on digs."

"Well you must find _that_ interesting then," Shepard protested. "What's the most interesting dig you've ever been on?"

"We are excepting the one where I was rescued by a Spectre?" She asked.

"Excepting the one where you were rescued by a Spectre," she confirmed, smiling.

"I am afraid that archeology isn't a glamorous as your average Faratenya T'Rost game makes it seem," Liara said.

"Faratenya T'Who?" Shepard asked.

"You have never played a Faratenya T'Rost game before?" Liara asked.

"We weren't allowed to play video games in the Shepard homestead. The nearest farm was seven klicks north-northwest, and they didn't have any kids," Shepard explained.

"Of course. How foolish of me." Liara said. "And perhaps there hasn't been a Faratenya T'Rost game in some time either. I played them when I was younger, which I suppose was long before you were born. I stopped keeping track when I was at university."

"OK, so _now_ you've got to tell me what they were like," Shepard said.

"Well, Faratenya was a beautiful asari maiden, and archaeologist... quite... well-endowed, I suppose would be an accurate descriptor. She got up to all kinds of misadventures during her exploration of various ruins. In hindsight, I suppose that the games had little to offer in the way of plot. Mostly you would play as Faratenya as she fought various smugglers or statues which had turned to life."

"I can see why you liked it," Shepard said.

Liara blushed. "It sounds so silly of me now... as if archeology were my only interest. I played _many_ games when I was younger. But I suppose Faratenya did make an impression on me. I think I probably read more into her character than was really there," Liara said, becoming wistful. "She was probably more of a sex symbol to the more _mature_ players of the game, but that facet was lost on me. I used to imagine that she was..." Liara stopped quickly and then drew a breath as if she had caught herself.

"You used to imagine what?" Shepard asked, leaning forward.

"I used to imagine that she was a... pureblood... like me," Liara stated reluctantly.

"A what?"

"Pureblood. It is a term we sometimes used to refer to an asari whose father is asari. It is a very hateful word," she clarified. "Very few would be cruel enough to say it to my face, but I have overheard it whispered on many occasions."

"Why would asari care about that sort of thing?" Shepard asked.

"Asari daughters are thought to receive psychological traits from the father. The effect is... subtle, so subtle that some doubt its existence. But, when two asari produce an offspring together... nothing new has been gained. Or so conventional wisdom holds," she said, her tone hushed.

"That's a disgusting way to think about a baby," Shepard declared.

"It is not just babies. It is a stigma that the person will carry with them long after they are through being a child," she explained.

"So your... _dad_... was also an asari?" Shepard asked for clarification.

"Yes, though I never knew her."

"What happened?" She asked.

"I do not know." Liara shook her head. "Mother never talked of it. Perhaps she was embarrassed at having produced a pureblood daughter."

"Liara!" Shepard scolded. "You don't know that. Maybe she wanted to be there but couldn't."

"I suppose it is a possibility," Liara conceded. "Perhaps you are right. I hope you are."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room.

"How rude of me," Liara declared. "In all this conversation about me, I have forgotten to ask anything of you."

"Meh, that's alright. I've been up to nothing but work since you last saw me anyway," Shepard declared with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"You are analyzing the data that Tali has recovered," Liara asked, by way of a statement.

"Don't know if I'd call it analyzing... what I'm doing is more like _ransacking_. Haven't found anything relevant. There's just _so_ much of it." She put her face in her hands and rubbed her eyes.

"Perhaps you would find it to be less overwhelming if you took a more systematic approach," Liara suggested.

Shepard chuckled. "Systematic?" She asked, looking up and giving Liara an incredulous gaze that said, "Who, me?"

"It is not difficult, and a small investment of time spent upfront in designing the system could provide greater returns later. What if I helped you to organize your work?" Liara suggested.

"You want to go ransacking through the data with me?" Shepard asked.

"Perhaps _you_ should continue to _ransack_ while I take a somewhat more... _archaeological_ approach."

"Hey! Now you're just comparing everything to archeology as a joke about yourself!" Shepard said excited to have picked up on such a subtle behavioral tick, one that she probably would have missed if she hadn't been inside Liara's mind so many times.

"You have caught me," Liara said, beaming. "Everything is like archeology in one way or another!" She said delightedly.

"Talk about a subtle sense of humor, T'Soni... and dry too."

"Well, if you are going to compare your efforts to ransacking, I suppose that I can compare mine to excavating," Liara said.

"You got me there!" Shepard conceded.

"And for your part, calling your investigation ransacking is quite an uncharitable descriptor," Liara said.

"But not inaccurate!" Shepard joked.

"Will you grant me access to Tali's data stream?" Liara asked, turning her chair back toward her work station.

"Sure," Shepard said, tapping a few command into her omni-tool and then waving it at Liara's console in the final, gesture-based confirmation, that was universal to all omni-tools. "She's still at it. I think I should order her to bed or something, but she seems to be having so much fun. Earlier she was trying to tell me all about the file encryption system... hashes and salts... weaknesses in the protocol used... something her dad's techs had found recently... her dad's one the admirals. You knew that, right?"

"I am afraid I did not," Liara said without turning back around.

"Well, yeah, he is," she continued. "He loaded up her omni with all kinds of useful stuff before he sent her off on her pilgrimage. Sounds really cute of him... but we're pretty lucky to have some of his top-secret quarian toys. Tali seemed to think that, without the algorithm that his boys cooked up, that the data would have been unrecoverable." She shrugged. "Still requires all kinds of number crunching though. The _Normandy's_ mainframe is almost completely devoted to the task she's running right now... Pressley's having a fit, but Adams assured me that it's fine." She laughed. "Pressley's not exactly happy that I've invited so many non-humans on the ship... in case you hadn't noticed."

"I did not," Liara confirmed.

"Yeah well, I think he's more worried about the turian and quarian than the asari," Shepard continued, feeling in an unusually talkative mood. "His granddad—who's like his hero, you know—was at Shanxi. A lot of humans still remember that."

"I remember it myself," Liara said, her attention still burred in the monitor. "When your forces defeated the turians there was a bit of an initial panic in the galaxy. Wild speculations that your species might be hyper-aggressive..."

"And look how that turned out!" Shepard said, leaning back on Liara's cot and staring up at the bulkhead.

"The initial panic was somewhat exaggerated. Still, many of us ' _non-humans,_ ' as you say, are a bit leery of your species as well... and for good reason."

"Good reason? Like what?" Shepard protested.

"You humans are creatures of action. You pursue your goals with an almost indomitable determination. I can sympathize with such dedication. It is an admirable quality, but also an intimidating one."

"You're scared of _us_?" Shepard asked, looking up at the ceiling.

"Unfortunately, the rest of the galaxy sees humanity as something of a bully. You run over anyone in your path to get what you want. Some species must wait hundreds of years to receive even an embassy. But there is already talk of adding the humans to the Council. Unfortunately, it is your military strength that ultimately counts for so much. The Council is afraid of what might happen if you decide to leave Council space—if the entire Traverse was to become part of the Terminus Systems. Were your species not limited by the treaty of Farixen, you might eventually construct a fleet rivaling even the turian's. They know that they must eventually give your species a seat, but they are stalling for time, hoping that humanity will give them a reason that they can use to justify it to the other species, the volus in particular. That is why many in the galaxy still fear you. It is up to people like you to change their mind, Shepard."

"You're an astute political analyst, Li! But why me?" Shepard asked.

"I admit to taking a passing interest in politics while at university... but there is a reason the Council chose you to become a Spectre. They saw something special in you. Look at this team you have assembled for yourself. A turian, a quarian, Wrex, even myself. They want the rest of the galaxy to see humans working together, _with_ us. It may be hard for you to understand, but your species is still so very new, and in a few short decades, your people have expanded out into the galaxy with great enthusiasm. Very few species' homeworlds have the population of Earth. Eleven billion, Shepard. That is almost more humans than every asari, on all of our worlds and beyond."

"I doubt I'm as family friendly as the Council thinks then; I'm no squib lover," Shepard said.

"I am sure they are aware of your... colorful... opinions concerning batarians. But I suppose it is your unbiased view of the species _inside_ of Council space that they _really_ care about. The Hegemony and the Council do not exactly see eye to eye."

"It's a little hard to when the squibs have so many of 'em," Shepard replied.

"Yes, well, jokes about batarian anatomy aside, it is some of their more unique cultural practices that the Council objects to."

"Cultural _practices_ my ass!" Shepard said turning her head to face Liara. "What they do to humans... to their own people, Liara... it's _disgusting_. Not even animals do that to their own."

Liara turned around to face Shepard, seemingly thoughtful. "You are right. I suppose that by using that term in the interest of being inoffensive I am actually being complicit in the perpetuation of an injustice."

Shepard sighed, turning her head back up to look at the ceiling. Liara turned around and went back to working on her computer.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Hmm? Oh, Jesus. How long have I been asleep?" Shepard said, awaking with a start.

"It is 03:00," Liara informed her. She was still working away at her computer, just as she had been when the commander had drifted off.

"Oh, fuck me," Shepard said, sitting up and looking around the room. "Why aren't you in bed?" She finally asked, coming to more of her senses.

"You were sleeping in it," Liara stated flatly.

"You should have woke me up. Thank God I didn't sleep here all night," she said standing up and shaking her head at the workaholic doctor. "C'mon you need to get some rest as much as I do. We can continue this in the morning."

"I have found some remarkable information about Dr. Jensen," Liara simply stated in response without looking away from the monitor.

"Yeah?" Shepard asked, walking over to the doctor and peering over her shoulder.

"From what I've pieced together, Dr. Jensen worked for an organization called Cerberus," Liara declared.

"I know of them. They're a pro-human hate group," Shepard said.

Liara nodded in confirmation. "Apparently he had a contact within the main ExoGeni building whom he reported to directly. I could only find the codename which he used with his contact. He went by the pseudonym Siddhartha, while his contact is referred to as Garibaldi. I had Tali look over his communications with this _Garibaldi_ _person_. It seems Garibaldi used several proxies to communicate with Dr. Jensen, bouncing the signal around the extranet before it was finally delivered back to Dr. Jensen's office. Normally this would make it all but impossible to track him down. But Tali noticed that the time-stamp on Garibaldi's last communication was dated _after_ the colony's extranet connection had gone down, rendering it impossible for the signal to escape out onto the extranet where it could be obfuscated. Now _this_ is the interesting part," Liara declared, seeming to relish the unraveling of the mystery. "Most of the communication that Dr. Jensen received from his contact made use of code words and phrases. I am at a loss to understand what most of it means. Presumably the words were agreed upon ahead of time so that they would look innocuous to anyone who might be snooping on Dr. Jensen's computer. But this last communication is uncoded. And it is the one that concerns _me_."

"You?" Shepard asked.

"Read it for yourself," Liara said, swiveling the display so that it was lined up perfectly for Shepard.

{

From: Garibaldi

To: Peter Emanuel Jensen MD

Subject:

Message:

Sid, it's me. Change of plans, new orders straight from the top. Your top priority is now the asari who landed with the Alliance soldiers. Get her out of harms way. Lure her away from the others if you can. Incapacitate her then leave her somewhere where the geth will find her AFTER the shooting has ended. When you're done with that, proceed to your safe zone. And whatever you do, stay there until the geth have left. If you can pull this off, you stand to be highly compensated for this. Confirmation code: Baguette.

}

"What the fuck is that all about?" Shepard asked when she had finished reading.

"I do not know, but I suspect that we should ask that question to Mr. Gavin Hossle," Liara said.

Shepard looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Mr. Hossle is Garibaldi," Liara explained. "At least, that is what we—Tali and I—presume. Every omni-tool has a unique machine code. This message was sent by an omni-tool that is registered to the head of ExoGeni's on site information technology department, a Mr. Gavin Hossle. It is a Cision PDS8, a model that Tali assures me is one of the few civilian omni-tools capable of broadcasting over the ranges required for Dr. Jensen to have received the message while the colony's internal communications network was down. I had Kaidan run a check for me. Mr. Hossle is currently detained on board the _Shasta,_ _along_ with most of the rest of the surviving department heads."

"Great work, Detective," Shepard said with a beaming smile. "You and Tali make quite a team. We'll head over to the _Shasta_ in the morning."

"You do not wish to speak with Mr. Hossle now?" Liara asked.

"No, I want him to be part of a routine medical examination in the morning. _Everybody_ in his cell, actually."

Liara looked at her with confusion, causing Shepard to grin wide in response. "It needs to look like we don't know what we're looking for."

~.~.~.~.~.~

"You can use that retinal suicide device anytime you like," Shepard stated to the blond man sitting across from her at the examination table.

"Excuse me?" Hossle said.

"You heard me. Go ahead," she repeated her consent.

He sat back in the chair, crossed his arms and looked at the human and asari seated across from him in the _Shasta's_ integration room. "I ain't gonna off myself," he said.

"Boy, getting med to trick you into swallowing that antidote was a huge waste of time then. Your friend, Dr. Jensen, had bigger balls," Shepard teased.

"What Jensen had was a lack of common sense," he shot back.

"Well, you know the score, Hossle. I'm a Spectre, this is an interrogation. You wanna do this the easy way, or the hard?"

"You need to work on your act a bit," the belligerent man said. "I'm not buying it at all. But as it turns out, I _do_ want to make this easy. I have a proposition."

"You're not in much of a position for making bargains," she said. "This had better be good."

"I want you to take me into custody, as a Spectre," the man said with no hint of sarcasm.

"Really?" She raised her eyebrow at him.

"So long as I'm a witness in an ongoing Spectre operation, they'll keep me in the Spectre lockup."

"True... but when my operation is over you'll probably wind up on Gellix," Shepard said.

"Maybe. But if your operation ends, that means Saren is dead, and Cerberus doesn't have a lot of friends with the turians. At least I'll be alive," he said.

"You don't think they can keep you safe in an Alliance prison?" Shepard asked.

"Cerberus moves freely within the Alliance," he explained. "They've got enough friends in high places."

"Alright, I don't care _where_ you get locked up," she said. "You play ball, and I'll take you back to the _Normandy's_ brig, drop you off with the Council..." He nodded at her. "Let's start from the top then. You're with Cerberus?"

"Was," he corrected, tapping at the side of his eye where his unused suicide device remained. "Me and Jensen were collecting information on the Thorian. Trying to understand how it controlled its thralls," he said.

"Isn't that what ExoGeni was doing?" She asked.

"Sure. But they weren't exactly forwarding their data to Cerberus. That's what _we_ did."

"So what's Cerberus want with this data?" She asked, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

"If I knew, I'd tell ya. Honestly," he said. "But that's not for us to know. All I know is that they wanted whatever we could give 'em."

"So you two were spies for Cerberus. That's simple _enough_ ," Shepard said. "Now where does Liara fit into all this?" She asked, uncrossing her arms gesturing over at Liara.

"Saren wanted her, or at least, that's what his contact told me." Shepard frowned at the man's mention of Saren. "Look, look, I'm not hold'n out on you," the man explained. "I'll explain everything. Yeah, I work for Cerberus, but I was also work'n for Saren. His people contacted me just after he left that creepy asari chick with the Thorian."

"You _knew_ about that?" Shepard asked.

"It was my _job_ to know about these things, and report back to Cerberus... So like I was saying, Saren's agent contacted me and I did some odd jobs for him. I guess to prove my loyalty or something. We used a QEC to avoid ExoGeni's network. You'll find all the equipment in my quarters, if you doubt my story. Ingenious little device, must have cost a small fortune... but Saren's got credits. I never told Dr. Jensen that some of the errands I was having him run were for Saren. He's the type that would have had a problem with that sort of thing."

"You mean the type with _integrity_?" Shepard asked.

"I mean the type who doesn't know a good thing when he sees it. But anyway, it was a few days ago that I got the big call. The geth were coming. And I was suppose to sabotage the communications system right before they would be showing up. Give 'em enough time to do their work, before... well before the Alliance could respond."

"Which was?" She asked.

"Their work?" He asked. "Finding the Thorian, and killing it. I knew where the damn thing was, sure. But the plan was to have the geth go rummaging through the data in the main building. You know, make it look like they didn't even know that it was here in the first place. A kind of accident. But then Jeong started the self-destruct process, and I had to counteract _that_ before he melted our goddamned data center into slag. So I guess the geth went to work trying to pry into that heap of half melted shit in the basement, I don't really know. I was outta there at that point. The geth were supposed leave site B alone... but anybody in the rest of the colony... I mean, they were gonna shoot to kill, you know? And I sure as shit wasn't going to be there to try to explain how things went fubar to a bunch of toasters when they showed up. Fortunately, they didn't damage the QEC in my quarters. And I've got a _nice,_ _long-range omni broadcaster_ , a Cision PDS-8, actually."

"So I've heard," Shepard unenthusiastically said, nipping the upcoming technology enthusiast crap that she was sensing from him in the bud.

"Yeah well, Saren's contact was on the line to me through the QEC, demanding to know what the hell had happened as soon as they had figured out how far shit had gone south," he continued with his story. "Cause like I said, I guess the geth weren't having an easy time with that pile of shit that Jeong turned the servers into. I told her that the Thorian was located below Zhu's Hope, but they already knew that. In their eyes, I had fucked it up. They were gonna hafta just _tell_ the geth where the Thorian was, and to _hell_ with the original plan and secrecy... _and_ me. But then she offered me a way to redeem myself. If I could deliver the asari that had landed with the _Normandy's_ ground team to the geth unharmed, they'd still pay me, same as before. Problem was, the geth were gonna just shoot the shit out of anything and everything... cleanse the colony of any witnesses. If you was gonna survive that," he said looking over at Liara. "You would have to be stashed someplace pretty safe until the fighting died down. I worked out a plan with her to have Dr. Jensen stash you someplace safe. The geth would find you later, when the shooting was over. I don't know what she wanted with you, or why. I just wanted the chance to actually get _paid_. I was gonna use that money to disappear. Set up a nice little life on a quiet world in the Terminus... a beach, somewhere tropical... and with asari."

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Didn't quite work out for you," she said.

"A colossal understatement... but look, that pretty much sums up the answer to your question," he said. "You can try using the QEC in my room if you want. But I doubt if anybody's gonna be answering _that_ line anymore. I played nice with you, now you honor _your_ end of the bargain. Get me off this tub."

"More questions first," Shepard said stated bluntly. "Why did Saren want the geth attack to look like it had nothing to do with the Thorian?"

"You're asking me? I just followed the instructions my contact gave me over the QEC. Maybe he didn't want _you_ on his trail?" He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Saren did not originally expect us to be here during the attack," Liara stated. "With the communications down, he may have assumed that the attack would go unnoticed until after the colony had been destroyed. If ExoGeni didn't know that the geth were under his command, they too might have little reason to suspect that Saren had betrayed them. And they would have little incentive to publicly report the death of the Thorian. Perhaps he was hoping that this incident would be largely ignored in the face of a geth invasion."

"Maybe that was his plan all along," Shepard said, continuing her line of reasoning. "Use the geth as a distraction for _everything_. Eden Prime would have looked like nothing more than a first strike if we hadn't made it to the beacon in time."

"If so, then we are _very_ fortunate," Liara said.

" _You_ might be," Gavin replied.

"Perhaps _all_ of as are," Liara stated, turning toward him.

"Still, we're a long way from tracking him down with this information," Shepard said. "This doesn't really help us at all."

"The Cipher..." Liara asked, tentatively.

"I don't know. I'm still kinda processing it. But I guess that remains our best bet," Shepard agreed. "We know that Saren needed it. And that he didn't want me to have it. So there must be _something_ in that vision that he doesn't want us to know. We've got to beat him to the Conduit."

"Mr. Hossle," Liara addressed the man. "I noticed that you referred to Saren's contact using the feminine pronoun."

"Pretty sure she was asari," He replied. "Can't know for sure, because she used an identity obfuscater. But I ran a statistical check on her vocabulary; the result was that she was being translated from Aramli with eighty-five percent confidence... Now, look, I played ball like you asked," he said turning toward Shepard. "You gonna take me to the _Normandy_?"

"Armali..." Liara trailed off and scrunched her brow in thought.

Shepard was about to ask Liara what she was thinking when her comm chimed.

"Shepard?" Tali's voice broke the silence.

"What is it, Sparks?" Shepard asked.

"I have something here you're going to want to see."


	11. No Man Is an Island

**No Man Is an Island**

> _No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men._
> 
> — _On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle_

The distinctive, pulsing hum of the Kodiak's drive core came to a stop as the inertial dampeners kicked off, the shuttle settling slightly under its newfound weight, easing itself into the docking cradle of the _Normandy's_ shuttle bay.

Shepard popped the hatch the moment the indicator light had turned green, jumping three feet down onto the metal deck plating of the shuttle bay without giving the slow, retractable staircase that usually was used for disembarkation a chance extend up to the Kodiak. Scanning the room she spotted a sheepish looking Tali walking in her direction, and set off jogging immediately over to her.

"I just let it connect to the extranet to see if I could sniff any interesting packets..." The apologetic quarian began, sounding distraught. "I didn't know that it would..."

"You're fine," Shepard said quickly, interrupting the woman and reaching for the device. "Let me talk to this clown."

She brought the comm piece of Dr. Jensen's omni-tool up to her ear, as Liara disembarked the shuttle and began walking toward the two women. Behind her, two officers escorted Gavin Hossle off of the Kodiak and out of the shuttle bay.

"This is Shepard," she spoke into the omni's comm.

"Commander, it's a pleasure to speak with you," the garbled voice on the other end replied.

"Cut the shit," Shepard shot back. "Who is this, and how did you know you could reach me here?"

"Who I am is not important at the moment. What I believe is," the distorted voice explained. "Unlike nearly everybody else in the galaxy, I _too_ believe the Reapers are real. And I want to help you stop them."

At the mention of Reapers, Shepard twirled away from both Tali and Liara and hissed into the receiver. "How do you know about that?"

"Cerberus has eyes and ears throughout the Alliance, as I'm no doubt sure Mr. Hossle has informed you already," the voice replied.

Shepard's posture straightened up and her voice took on a more formal tone. "Mr. Hossle is a person of interest in an ongoing investigation."

"Please, Commander. Let's refrain from insulting each other. If you're half the woman I think you are, then you've already figured out that Gavin Hossle is a Cerberus agent who's been passing information about the Thorian to us for about fifteen months now. "

Shepard paused and thought for a few seconds before turning back around to face Tali and Liara. "What did you want with the Thorian?" She asked, dropping all pretense.

"Data," the voice declared nonchalantly. "We merely wanted a chance to understand the creature. The instantaneous _control_ that it exerts over its thralls—irrespective of even light-years of separation—merited further study. Surely you can see that."

"Light-years?" She asked, bewildered.

"A few test subjects were separated from the Thorian's immediate presence on Dr. Jensen's suggestion. ExoGeni settled them on Nordacrux, in the Vostok System. The results were interesting, even if little of value was learned."

"Who the fuck _are_ you?" Shepard asked in frustration.

"Whoever I choose to be, an illusion. A cryptic answer," the voice paused, seeming to exhale slowly, "but you can't seriously expect me to reveal myself to you. Now, you can continue to stall me for time while your quarian attempts to trace the route of this call, or we can talk actual business. The choice is yours."

Shepard looked over at Tali who was furiously working away on her own omni-tool. "What business could I possible have with you?" She asked.

"Have you ever read any of Thomas Carlyle's writing? No, I don't suppose you have," the voice answered its own question. "I'm a strong believer in his views on the role of Great Men throughout history, that is, if you'll excuse the gender language that was common in his time." The voice exhaled again. "I've been watching you since you first began talking about the Reapers. You've got the makings of a Great Woman, a leader. You're the right person, at the right place and time... but most importantly, with the right cause."

"Am I supposed to be flattered?" She asked, almost laughing.

"Hardly," the voice assured her. "But I have something that can help you, or more precisely, one of your associates. Cerberus has had its eye on Dr. T'Soni for some time as well. Her papers on the violent extinction of the Protheans have made for... interesting reading in light of certain facts concerning the Reapers. She's an astute scientist, and we merely wish to pass on some contact information to help further the doctor's career."

"What do you mean?" Shepard asked turning her gaze toward Liara who stared back at her, listening in on the conversation through her own comm.

"I want to test my hunch about you. I want to see you in action," the voice explained. "I'm sending you the contact information for a Cerberus employee, Dr. Bryson."

"You're nuttier than a fruitcake," Shepard announced. "You have to know I'm gonna arrest him."

"That's certainly your prerogative, but except for working for an organization that's been unjustly labeled as terrorist, he's done nothing wrong. If my hunch is correct about you, you won't throw away this opportunity. You're a Spectre now; it's time you started acting like one."

"And just what opportunity is that?" she asked.

"A chance to learn something about indoctrination," the voice stated.

Shepard turned around again, formulating a thousand questions in her mind, but ultimately articulating nothing.

"I thought that might get your attention," the voice stated after a pause. "Look up Dr. Bryson the next time you're on the Citadel. He has a small lab there where he's been doing some work that I think you'll find _very_ interesting."

"I _should_ arrest him," Shepard stated.

"It's your decision to make now... but let me sweeten the deal a little. In several days time, admiral Hackett will be called to stand before Parliament to testify about his role in the arrest and extended detention of the twelve members of ExoGeni's board of directors. As you well know, ExoGeni is crucial to the Systems Alliance's settlement plans in the Traverse. They have many friends in Parliament. It's not at all clear that the admiral's actions will be upheld when it comes time to vote. Cerberus has enough clout with certain pro-expansion politicians—the ones likely to vote against the admiral—to all but guarantee that his decisions will be cleared."

"Which politicians?" Shepard asked.

"Again, Shepard. Let's not insult each other's intelligence. Very few of these men and women _know_ that they are dealing with Cerberus. The admiral stuck his neck out for you. Now it may be cut off. But look around you, Shepard. Look at your crew. They've all begun to recognize you as a hero, a Great Woman. They look to you for leadership. It can be lonely at the top, but that's the price of greatness, I know firsthand. You haven't come this far by playing by all of the rules. Dr. Bryson is an innocent man, a simple researcher. He hasn't transgressed any of your moral boundaries. And he can help you. And by proxy, if you cooperate, the admiral too. I've finished uploading his contact information to this omni-tool. This is the moment of truth, the moment we find out if you are going to be one of the great movers of history, or just a brief shooting star. Think hard, Shepard. Don't make a mistake you'll later regret."

The omni's connection severed.

"Why am I the last person to know _anything_ around here?" Shepard called out in frustration. "Tali, did you get anything?" She asked, turning back around.

The quarian shook her head. "He was using an untraceable routing path," she explained.

"Joker, Pressly. I want this bird prepped and ready for take off," Shepard spoke into her comm. "We're headed back to the Citadel."

"Roger that, ma'am," came the flight lieutenant's response.

"You mean to question Dr. Bryson?" Liara asked.

"One way or another," Shepard replied. "Yeah."

~.~.~.~.~.~

Shepard sat in the relative quiet of the empty mess, perusing the Alliance operations reports from Feros. The investigators had found the prototype QEC in Hossle's room, right where he had told them to look, so that much of his story checked out. Not that she had much doubt now, considering how the man had seemed to know so much about Saren and the geth... and the call from the mysterious "Illusive Man" seemed to confirm that Hossle was indeed a Cerberus agent.

As Hossle had speculated, the QEC was still functional, but there was no response to any messages sent through it. Hackett had ordered that it be shipped back to Arcturus, where the boys would no doubt pull it apart down to its wires, searching for any clue that might reveal the location of its manufacture. Meanwhile, Hossle himself sat in the _Normandy's_ brig, awaiting transfer to the Council's holding facility when they arrived at the Citadel.

As was her custom, Shepard checked the casualty lists of each company's operations report when she finished reading them. She found only one entry marked for the day on this particular report. It was a suicide among the civilians. Juliana Baynham, a forty-eight-year-old woman, whose daughter had been among the confirmed dead reported found in the main ExoGeni building.

She sighed as she repeated Juliana's name in her mind, picking up the next operation report just as Kaidan was walking into the hall. She eyed him as he came over to her table and seated himself across from her. She put down her datapad and sat back in her chair.

"I've listened to the recording of your conversation with that Cerberus guy," he started.

She stared back at him. "Yeah?" She coaxed after some silence.

"Well, it's just... Permission to speak freely, ma'am?" He asked, becoming suddenly formal.

"Of course. What's on your mind?" She replied.

"I'm not so sure that pursuing this Bryson guy is a good idea," he said bluntly.

"OK, I'm listening," she replied.

"I just want you to tell me that you're gonna arrest him," he said as if seeking assurance, shifting his weight around in the chair.

"Right now I don't know what I intend to do," she stated. "I want to see what he has to say before I decide what to do with him."

"But no matter what he has to say, it won't change the fact that he's a terrorist," Kaidan said, laying out his reasoning in a calm rather than confrontational manner.

"He might be," Shepard agreed. "He certainly works for terrorists. But I'm gonna scope the situation out before making a decision about what to do. If all he does is harmless research..."

"Well that's just it, really. If he's really been doing research on this indoctrination thing that Shiala showed you... he's been doing it _for_ Cerberus, with _their_ funds and for _their_ cause. If we ally with them, with Cerberus... we're no better than them, really."

"I'm not sure I'd call this small amount of cooperation an alliance, but how do you figure?" She asked leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table.

"He's been using terrorist funding. If we accept the results of that funding... we'd be justifying everything that Cerberus has done... all that they stand for. Hell, just look at what Dr. Jensen talked ExoGeni into doing with the Thorian. Do we really want to be part of that? Do we really want to be on the same side with them? I don't want to see the admiral thrown to the wolves either... but at what cost?"

"Forget the admiral for a second. You want me to just ignore the only lead we have while Saren is out there searching for the Conduit because... because what? Guilt by association?" She asked.

"I guess it sounds crazy when you put it that way. It's just... the whole thing just stinks. Something's not right here. Did you hear the way that Cerberus guy appealed to your vanity to try to get what he wanted? I don't trust them," he declared finally.

"Well, there's something we can both agree on," Shepard said leaning back in her chair again. "I'd _sure as hell_ like to know how Cerberus found out about the Reapers. And maybe we can find out. If Dr. Bryson can give us any information to go on, anything at all, I want to hear what he has to say. If he doesn't give us something useful... well, we're pretty much back to square one again. War can make strange bedfellows. I don't like Cerberus either, but as far existential threats to the entire galaxy go, I guess that kinda thing puts them on the same side as everybody else." She sat up straight in her chair. "You're a man of principles, Kaidan. I respect that. And while I take the threat of the Reapers and my authority as a Spectre very seriously, I'm certainly not gung-ho to go betraying mine or anything. And you can bet your sweet ass my ego isn't in the slightest bit stroked by that 'Great Woman' BS."

"I guess that's all I really wanted to hear. I'm sorry if it sounded like I doubted you," he said sincerely.

"Not at all," she said.

"But you know..." he said, his voice sliding into a cornily sly tone. "your principles are your most endearing feature. I definitely wouldn't want to see you lose them."

"The most?" She asked coyly.

"Among others," he responded with a smile. "Hey, I don't know how long you plan to keep us at the Citadel, but maybe while we're there, we could, you know, take a few hours... maybe grab a drink, see a vid?"

"I'd like that." She smiled. "I've already promised Ash a little girl-time, but I think we might be able to fit that in too," she said smiling harder.

"Great..." he said, just smiling back. "I guess I should go do some personal grooming then," he added after an uncomfortable pause.

She looked over his perfectly manicured face and hair, deciding that any maintenance he might need must be elsewhere on his body. "Hmm. Aren't we optimistic?" She said.

"What?" He asked.

"Never mind, Lieutenant," she said in a teasing tone, picking up her coffee and looking back down at her data pad.

"What?" He asked again, chuckling this time.

She looked up from the pad and continued to smile at him in silence.

"Oh you thought... I mean that... that I was going to..."

She grinned back at him even harder.

He burst out laughing. "OK, I admit it, it's not like I wasn't going to groom there as well."

"Have fun, Lieutenant," she said, bringing the coffee cup up to her smiling lips as he backed up and eventually turned around, exiting the mess.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"We are in transit," Liara began, her voice grounding Shepard's mind, focusing it with a selected recitation of a Siarist mantra. "In the places between the stars, between our origin..." She reached out and touched Shepard's temple. "And our destination," she said, drawing her hand to the side of her own head. This in-between place is called the void, but space is not empty, it is a plenum. We believe that we travel alone, but we are each shaped by all of those around us. There is no lover without an object of love, no poet without a reader of poems, no traveler without a destination. Open yourself to a fellow traveler. Embrace eternity!"

Liara's mind slipped into Shepard's with a comfortable familiarity as the commander's mental barriers—ones she had forgotten existed—relaxed themselves, one after the next, like the sloughing off of scales of armor that she had worn for so long that she had forgot when or why or even how she had put them on without a squire in the first place. It was like taking a shower after spending a week in the trenches, all of the dirt and grime washing off, leaving the body feeling fresh and light. There was a strength in being not alone, a strength derived from others. She reached out with her own mind until she could feel the same process occurring within Liara—barrier after barrier coming down—and feeling no sign of resistance or judgment, she reached out gently, purely on instinct and without thought, to caress the place where one of Liara's barriers had just come down.

{

She felt her mother's hand gripping her own tightly.

"She's so smart!" One of her mother's friends said. "She acts like a little adult."

"She is exceptionally bright for her age," her mother confirmed, looking down at her. "But she has her moments like any child. We're working on trying to be more sociable with the other children. Aren't we, Liara?" She asked tugging on her arm.

She looked up at her mother and nodded dutifully.

}

She felt Liara's mind reeling away, the barriers beginning to rise again, cutting her off from the feeling of Liara's presence, leaving her alone again, lesser.

_Oh, God, excuse me. I'm sorry... I didn't mean..._ Shepard thought to her.

_It is alright,_ Liara responded. _But i_ _f you would refrain from doing that again..._

_Of course, of course,_ Shepard replied, feeling profound embarrassment as Liara's mind began easing itself back into her own.

_I'm very sorry_ , Shepard thought to Liara when her mind had drawn closer, projecting feelings of deep guilt and regret.

Liara merely smiled at her, her feelings of acceptance and forgiveness flooding into Shepard's mind, prompting Shepard to smile in return.

It was remarkable, the degree to which she _liked_ this alien woman who she had met less than one week ago.

_I like you too,_ Liara explicitly thought, returning Shepard's unstated feelings.

_I don't think I've ever had a friend as close as you, and we've just barely met_ , Shepard thought.

_I think you are often too hard on yourself, and you think that others perceive you just_ _as_ _harshly, but now you know that they do not,_ Liara thought.

_Maybe_ , Shepard thought back. _You don't, anyway._

Shepard felt the slight sting of caring disapproval over her stubborn intransigence come from Liara. _Shall we begin?_ Liara asked.

Shepard mentally signaled her readiness.

The wave of images crashed over her as it had many times before. This time, however, there were words. No, not words, but ideas, notions.

_Too late... invading fleets. No escape._

There were still the nauseating gaps—where it felt as if the floor had been pulled out from underneath her—and the signal, and hence world around her, dropped instantly away to nothing.

_Reapers. The Citadel, overwhelmed. Only hope... Act of desperation. The_ _C_ _onduit... All is lost._

Suddenly, an overwhelming torrent of information hit her. Places, names, faces... at least it _seemed_ as if they were places, names, and faces. If she had been asked to state a single name, she could not. If she had been ask to describe a single face, she could not. It was like the abstract idea of a face, but without any of the actual content. As if a child had been stranded on a desert island for her whole life with a library of books to read. Some of the books contained the idea "apple," but she had never seen a real apple, never tasted one. From the use of the word "apple" in the books, she knew that it was a food. She knew that an apple is usually red, and can fit in the hand. But could she draw a picture of one? Did she know that an apple had little bumps along the bottom? Did she know what one tasted like? Did she know the way it felt to twist the stem off in an absentminded way? Shepard's places, names, dates, faces, projects, were like that idea of the apple, like form without content.

The Cipher had transformed the vision from a cacophonous mess, into an a type of order. But the order was still somehow flat, two-dimensional.

Liara broke the meld, returning them to Shepard's quarters. "Hmm..." She said.

"Hmm what?" Shepard asked.

"The beacon was damaged," she stated.

"Right," Shepard confirmed.

"And the message is incomplete, probably as a result of the damage," Liara continued.

"Right, but there's nothing we can do about that now. The beacon was all but obliterated in the ensuing explosion... I guess Saren just has an advantage on us there," Shepard said.

"Perhaps not," Liara replied. "It is possible that the beacon had been damaged long before he had a chance to use it. It is conceivable that _he_ lacks the entirety of the message as well."

"Could that help us?" Shepard asked, thinking the idea over herself.

"I am not sure. If his vision is also incomplete... then it is possible that he could be searching for another beacon. But perhaps not. He seemed to already know of the Conduit's existence and its importance in furthering his goals."

"So then... maybe he had already used one," Shepard suggested.

"A beacon? That is a remarkable hypothesis," Liara pronounced. "Given the rarity of beacons, I had not even considered such a possibility."

"It's probably a stupid idea then," Shepard said dismissively.

"No, not at all," Liara insisted. "It would explain a great many things. But it would be exceedingly unlikely that he could have discovered a beacon on his own. If Saren purchased the beacon from its discovers..."

"What are you thinking?" Shepard prompted.

"If a beacon were to be discovered by a legitimate archaeological team, the finding would be publicly announced, the beacon opened up to study by the academic community. However, if a beacon were to be discovered by scavengers, or other miscreants, they may have attempted to sell it on the black market. I can check with some of my peers at the University of Serrice's archeology department. Somebody there is bound to know of any rumors such an attempt would surely generate."

"It's an angle worth pursuing," Shepard agreed.

"Do you want to try again?" Liara asked enthusiastically. "I'd like another look at the way the Cipher has changed the vision."

Shepard nodded in confirmation.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Upon arriving at the Citadel, Shepard oversaw the transfer of Gavin Hossle to the high-security Citadel detention center, while Kaidan ensured that Shiala's elohan reached the proper authorities. Before disembarking herself, Shepard authorized the crew for shore leave during their off-duty hours. Intent on eating some decent food while the opportunity presented itself, she invited Liara and Ashley to join her for lunch on the Citadel, after which she would pay Dr. Bryson a visit. Being a relative novice on the Citadel, Shepard had urged Liara to choose a restaurant for them, and Liara had decided on an asari place that she claimed served excellent chilled tresk steaks in the Astrian tradition.

"So... this place is on the Presidium?" Ashley asked skeptically as they stepped out of the cab and onto the floor of the exquisitely manicured space. "I'm gonna be eating a week of NCO's pay."

"Yes," Liara answered. "I had not considered the price. How foolish of me..." she said looking at the two uniformed women who had followed her out of the skycab. "Let me handle the entirety of the cheque," she offered.

Shepard was about to protest Liara's offer when Ashley piped up, beating her to the punch.

"That's awful kind of you, T'Soni! I'm looking forward to some of this fancy, Presidium grub."

Shepard shot her a disproving glare, to which she smiled cheerfully in return.

The three of them walked on in silence for a few minutes, the two humans trailing behind Liara, who led the way.

"If it would not inconvenience either of you, I would like to take this opportunity to purchase a new omni-tool," Liara said, coming to a stop in front of a designer electronics boutique.

"No, I've got nothing better to do. What about you, Skip?" Ashley asked.

"Go right ahead," Shepard said to Liara, who walked off into the boutique

"You asked me to keep an eye on her, Skip," Ashley said, lowering her voice. "So I've kept my eye on her."

"And?" Shepard asked, almost laughing.

"And, she's dangerous, Skip..." Ashley said, her tone becoming even more serious, her eyes locked onto Shepard's. "Dangerously rich," she smirked. "Could you even imagine buying an omni from this place?" She gestured up at the sign. "Seriously, I bet a human's never even shopped here."

Shepard laughed. "The merchandise here is probably worth half the credits on Earth."

"Easily," Ashley agreed. "So what's the deal with you and Lieutenant handsome?" Ashely asked, changing topics. "You making any progress with that?"

"I told him we could do something before we depart from the Citadel again."

"'Bout time," Ashley declared.

"I've known him for like two weeks!" Shepard protested.

"Yeah, but he needs to step up his game before his competition out maneuvers him," she said, craning her head to looking into the store to catch a glimpse of Liara's shopping.

"Oh stop it!" Shepard laughed.

"I don't know, you and the doc would make a cute couple," she teased. "Kinda like Lady and the Tramp."

"Oh shush, you!" Shepard said, playfully punching Ashley in the gut. "You're the tramp."

"I suppose I've got the stamp to prove it," she said, reaching around behind her and rubbing her back.

"What've you got there?" Shepard asked.

Ashley turned around and lifted up the back of her uniform shirt. "Skull of the 212," She proudly pronounced, presenting the image of a human boot crushing a turian skull to Shepard.

"Oh, God," Shepard said. "Just don't show that to Garrus."

"What makes you think Garrus is gonna get a look at _this_?" Ashley asked, turning back around.

"They let the 212 use that image?" Shepard asked.

"Not anymore, they changed it when we signed the Conventions," Ashley explained, rolling up her sleeve. "This is our official emblem," she said presenting a tattoo of an eagle holding a snake on her shoulder. "But a lot of us get the old one too. What about you, Skip? Do you have a favorite?"

"I'm most proud of my N7 tat," she said, rolling up her sleeve to match Ashley's.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Shepard and Ashley spent several minutes comparing tattoos while Liara browsed inside the store. They were just wrapping up the exchange of war stories that their ink told when Liara emerged empty-handed looking quite distraught.

"I appear to be in quite some trouble," She announced to the two of them.

"What's the matter?" Shepard asked.

"It seems that all of my mother's assets have been frozen," Liara replied.

"And?" Shepard asked.

"And I do not have any money of my own," Liara explained.

Ashly stood behind Liara, making eye contact with Shepard, a huge smirk growing on her face.

"You share a bank account with your mom?" Shepard asked.

"I am only 106, I am still listed as a dependent in the Thessia census. I may be pushing the acceptable age of a dependent somewhat, but it is not _that_ uncommon."

"But you haven't spoken with her in years," Shepard protested.

"Nor have I abused her finances in that time. I suppose this may be hard for you to understand, but it is not as if she has disowned me," Liara said.

Finally Shepard's face broke a smirk not unlike Ash's. "You're rich," she declared.

"I suppose you could say that," Liara responded. "Or more accurately now, my mother _was_ quite financially secure. It appears now, however, that I am on my own."

"Hmm... tell ya what, how much was that omni you were looking at?" Shepard asked.

"8999 credits," Liara responded.

"Ho! I can't afford to front you that much... um... Is there a _cheaper_ model that you'd be OK with?" Shepard asked.

"I could not ask you draw from your own finances on my behalf. I will have to make do with this," Liara said, gesturing at the model Shepard had requisitioned for her out of the _Normandy's_ supplies.

"Maybe I could just march up there and demand that they hand it over. Urgent Spectre business," Shepard suggested.

"You wouldn't!" Ashely laughed.

She grinned deviously. "Well... the fate of the _entire_ _galaxy_ could depend on my squad being _properly_ equipped..."

"You are... teasing me again," Liara observed timidly.

"How about an endorsement?" The salarian at the front of the store hollered out a suggestion.

"Excuse me?" Shepard shouted back.

The salarian motioned for them to approach the counter.

"Tel Binks, I'm the manager of this store," he introduced himself as they walked up. "You're commander Shepard, right? The first human Spectre? We see lots of human customers in the omni business," he said looking over at Ashly. "Some straight off the transport from Earth. An endorsement from you could mean a lot to me. Maybe even worth a top-line omni."

The three women exchanged looks with one another.

~.~.~.~.~.~

"I'm commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store on the Citadel," the freshly recorded announcement boomed out of the storefront and onto the Presidium commons.

"Why do I feel dirty?" Shepard asked as the three of them stepped out of the store.

Liara was too absorbed in her new omni to even hear, let alone answer the question.

"Oh, I don't know, Skip," Ashley said. "You're just beginning to stretch your Spectre legs a little is all."

Shepard looked over at Liara whose head was still buried in her new omni-tool.

"Well, now that lunch isn't on _her_ , what do you say we find a place to eat down in the Wards?" Shepard suggested to Ashely.

"That sounds like a plan, Skip."

~.~.~.~.~.~

"This is ground up... cow?" Liara asked.

"Well, they used to make it out of ground up cow. Nowadays the meat is all vat grown," Shepard explained.

The three women sat in the booth of a greasy spoon with a sign that had advertised, "the best burgers beyond jump zero."

"And that is cheese on yours, also from cows," Liara said.

"Yep, I don't think asari are lactose tolerant though. That's why I got yours plain," Shepard explained.

"And these are called potatoes," Liara asked, picking out a fry from the cardboard box on her tray.

"No, those are called fries, they're _made_ out of potatoes, a tuber," Shepard said.

"Are we a picky eater, Doc?" Ashley asked.

"Oh, no. Not at all. Food is _often_ limited on digs, a picky eater would not survive," Liara said, lifting the bun off of the top of her burger and examining the condiments. "I am merely curious about the origins of our meal."

"Beggars can't be choosers," Ashley said.

"No, I suppose not. I will keep a running tab of how much I owe you, starting with the omni-tool," Liara said, replacing the bun and addressing Shepard.

"You don't owe me for the omni-tool. That was gratis," Shepard responded, waving her hand in a dismissal.

"It's like you've adopted your own little asari," Ashley teased. "So cute."

Liara hung her head. "I will, of course, find a means of reimbursing you, Shepard," she said, looking up after a pause.

"Maybe we can add her expenses to the _Normandy's_ operations budget," Shepard suggested. "Dr. Liara T'Soni, _executive_ consultant to the System's Alliance on matters Prothean."

"That would be... most kind of you," Liara said.

"Now that's command thinking. You're getting used to this whole Spectre thing pretty quick," Ashley said.

"Speaking of which, I'm headed to Bryson's place when we finish here," Shepard stated.

"Alone?" Ashly asked.

"You say that like it's some kinda set up, but why would Cerberus want to set _me_ up? Here, on the Citadel?"

"Well, you don't know what's going on, Skip. Better to be cautious. I'm coming with you," Ashley declared.

"As am I." Liara spoke up.

"OK, well, I guess that's three to one in this little democracy." Shepard chuckled and took another bite of her cheeseburger. "No woman is an island."


	12. I Remember Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warning:**
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter contains depictions of extreme abuse, mental and physical trauma, and Stockholm Syndrome.
> 
> It also contains pejoratives directed at homosexuals. I think this is a very natural thing for our heroine to utter at the point in the story where she does, but I want to make it clear that I don't endorse or condone this type of language.

**I Remember Me**

> _There, but for the grace of God, go I._
> 
> — _Popular saying attributed to John Bradford_

~.~.~.~.~.~

"Dr. Bryson?" Shepard knocked on the hard metal of the nondescript door which matched the address given to her by the Cerberus contact. It was level 21, unit 7 of a building on Bachjret Ward which rented out commercial space for small businesses along with a few science labs. Apparently, the alert-chime was broken.

"Dr. Bryson?" She shouted again, banging her first on the door, as Liara and Ashley stood woodenly behind her.

After a few moments the door opened revealing the rough features of man whose face managed to look worn by time, yet still somehow spirited. "Ah, commander Shepard. I've been expecting you," The wiry bald man said. "And Dr. T'Soni. _This is_ a pleasure. I greatly admire your work."

"You know of my research?" Liara asked the man, stepping forward.

"Know of it? You're an inspiration to all of us, Doctor," the man said. "Please, come in." He stood to the side as Liara and Shepard crossed the threshold.

"And you are?" The man asked Ashley as she stepped through the door.

"Personal guard," she said bluntly. "I'm here with the commander."

"I see," he said nodding to himself. "Caution is warranted whenever dealing the likes of Cerberus. And I'm Garret Bryson," he said, extending his hand out to Shepard. "As I'm sure you've no doubt guessed."

"Doctor," Shepard said, shaking his hand. "What's this about caution being warranted with Cerberus?"

"Don't think I don't know who I work for," Bryson responded. "Receiving funding from a terrorist organization wasn't exactly my first choice to finance my research. But as you know, Doctor," he said turning toward Liara. "funds can be hard to come by when you work outside of the academic consensus."

"I have never felt the need to accept money from an organize that promotes hatred," Liara stated flatly without hint of disapproval in her tone.

"Cerberus will spend their money one way or another," Bryson countered. "It's better if they spend it on something that will have an actual benefit, like my research."

"Cerberus was less than forthcoming about what your research actually is, Doctor," Shepard interjected.

"Then let me show you around," he said, turning around after gesturing for them to follow him.

He led the group down a hall and out into a room which was cluttered to overflowing with knickknacks, various scientific curiosities, and equipment, some unique, and others mundane—a fossil trilobite, a Crookes radiometer, what looked to be an authentic headdress—from what culture, Shepard had no idea. There was a Galilean thermometer, and a statue of Athame. Hidden in the far corner was a large electron microscope. Weights, and beakers, and paper books, a mass spectrometer and a table-sized centrifuge, equipment lockers, and a large meteorite fragment, all of this was crammed into the small lab space. Or, perhaps it wasn't that the space was small, maybe it had once seemed large, before acquiring all of this suffocating clutter. Shepard's eyes took in only a small fraction of it all.

"This is my assistant, Mr. Hadley," Dr. Bryson motioned to the man working away at a computer console to the left of the entrance.

"Hello," the man nodded at them as they passed.

"So what is your connection to the Reapers, Doctor?" Shepard asked as they came to a stop in the center of the room.

"When the rest of the galaxy thinks something doesn't exist, I take that as an opportunity to prove them wrong," he replied with a hint of relish in his voice.

"So you're in it for the challenge?" She probed.

"For the _truth_ ," he corrected. "Even as late 2148 humanity still thought that aliens were a myth. That was within _my_ lifetime, Commander. Once that myth was proven to be reality, our entire history changed. I watched it happen. It taught me a lesson, there's probably more out there than you expect."

"Or want," Shepard added. "The Reapers are part that reality we discovered out here."

Bryson nodded. "But everything has a history, Commander..." he said walking over to the headdress and adjusting it so that it sat straight on the stand. "Even the Reapers. To understand a thing, is the first step in controlling it."

"Controlling them? Don't you think that's a little premature?" She asked.

"Knowledge is power, Commander. A little knowledge is a little power, a little control," he clarified. "I'm trying to understand what I can about the Reapers... It's lonely work, few even believe in them. There are Rumors and legends—half truths, all of it—and then there's quality work, like yours, Doctor," he said looking over at Liara. "But that isn't taken seriously by the mainstream of academic research. Have you heard of the Leviathan of Dis?" he asked, turning back to Shepard.

She shook her head.

"The Leviathan was an artifact discovered in the Dis system of the Hades Gamma Cluster," Liara explained. "The original report by the batarian survey team that discovered the object estimated that it was over a billion years old, a genetically engineered starship, if you can believe such reports."

"This was before first contact," Bryson explained. "The Hegemony quickly issued a statement declaring that the survey team's public announcement was a mistake. When a group of salarian researchers showed up to investigate the artifact, they found nothing but a hole in the ground."

"Squibs," Shepard shook her head in disapproval.

"We believe that genetically engineered starship was a Reaper vessel," he said, his tone betraying just a hint of the surprising revelation that he knew that statement would be.

"Why?" Shepard ask, cutting straight to the chase.

Bryson nodded again. "Our first clues were vague. The ship was interesting because it was ancient. But that's where Cerberus tipped us off."

"What does Cerberus know about the Reapers?" Shepard probed.

"A lot it seems," he said, raising his eyebrows in a sympathetic gesture. "They've never really been interested in sharing too much with me and my team. But they were more than willing to point us in the right direction."

"Which was?" Shepard asked.

He motioned over them over to a computer console in the middle of the room.

"I don't want to waste your time with a full report of our activities, Commander. If you're looking for proof that it was a Reaper ship, this is some of the most compelling evidence to date, and it's fairly new," he said.

He opened two pictures side by side on the monitor. The first was a picture of Sovereign, taken straight from recordings on Eden Prime, the second was a picture of a ship that looked almost exactly like Sovereign being excavated by batarian workers.

"It looks just like Saren's ship," Shepard muttered.

"It makes you wonder what sort of weapon could take down a ship like that," he replied.

"Do you know something, Bryson?" Shepard asked.

"The batarians team that discovered the Leviathan weren't looking for Reapers obviously," Bryson began. "They were investigating what they thought was a small Prothean research outpost on Jartar. It turned out to be much larger than they had anticipated."

Liara stepped forward and joined the immediate sphere of the conversation, forming a tight circle of three. Ashley continued to watch silently from behind.

"I've been to that outpost," Bryson stated, not without a little drama in his tone. "When the Council refused to place limits on our expansion into the Skylian Verge, the batarians withdrew from what we now call the Hades Gamma cluster, falling back to fortify positions along the edge of batarian space. The Systems Alliance moved in."

"Hades Gamma is right along the line. Could be part of the Traverse or the Verge, depending on how you look at it," Shepard said, thinking to herself of batarians and politics.

Bryson nodded. "Far enough from the Terminus, but close enough to Hegemony space that the batarians had assumed that, with no other major powers in the vicinity, it would be theirs in due time."

"Then we showed up," Shepard said grinning widly.

"But the batarians were sloppy," Bryson continued his train of thought rather than stopping to participate in Shepard's gloating. "The order to pull out of Hades Gamma must have taken the team on Jartar by surprise. They looted nearly anything of value from the Prothean ruins in a hurry. But they inadvertently left a wealth of information at that site."

"Such as?" Liara asked.

"Datapads, journals... just scraps really. All of the important documents were long gone. But we were able to piece together enough information to get a partial view of what they were doing there. From their investigations, the batarians seemed to think that the Protheans who were studying the Leviathan believed that _something_ had taken control of the ship."

"Taken control of a Reaper ship?" Shepard asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Run it aground on Jartar," he confirmed. "Commander, if that's true, that's the _real_ Leviathan."

"You can't believe that," she said.

"As I said, I take your skepticism to be a challenge," Bryson said straightening up and placing both his hand behind his back.

"Your confidence seems to suggest that you have yet more information to disclose to us," Liara observed.

The man smiled for the first time and relaxed again. "The Prothean's left a wealth of information about this Reaper ship killer on Jartar. Unfortunately, most of that is now in batarian hands. But they left us enough clues to get us started. Commander," he said, pausing for dramatic effect. "We've been tracking what we think is a Reaper killer, a _true_ Leviathan."

"You say Leviathan in the singular but..." Liara began.

"The darkness cannot be breached," a voice from behind them spoke, cutting her off.

The deafening noise of a gunshot shocked Shepard's senses into sudden alertness. She watched as Dr. Bryson began to fall to the floor in front of her, whirling around in time to see Bryson's assistant, Hadley, aiming a pistol at her. Another gunshot and Hadley fell to the floor. Shepard looked to her left to see Ashley, pistol drawn, her eyes scanning the room, her stance ready to fire.

"Fuck!" Shepard shouted turning back around and kneeling down to examine Bryson. The man was plainly dead, the slug had pierced his head and blown a considerable portion of his grey matter out of the back of his skull upon exiting. She scrambled over to the gunman, Hadley. The man was writhing in a pool of his own blood on the floor.

"Oh, God! What happened?" he shouted in agony.

"Williams, secure the perimeter, make sure we're alone. Liara, get C-Sec down here, now!" Shepard shouted.

She knelt next the murderer and began applying first aid.

~.~.~.~.~.~

The C-Sec team had responded rapidly, the first officers showing up within minutes of the murder. For the most part, Shepard had tried to stay out their way, but gradually the ranks of C-Sec officers had swollen. She observed what she could of the scene passively from the hall outside the door to Bryson's lab until it had became obvious to her that a man named captain Bailey was the one in charge of the investigation, at which point she had made her introduction. The no-nonsense man had seemed little fazed by her Spectre status and had questioned her about what she had witnessed before returning to the fray to direct other parts of the investigation. Shepard stood talking with Liara and Ashley for several minutes out in the hall before the captain returned.

"I just got word," Bailey said, walking up to the trio of women. "Derek Hadley's been pronounced D.O.A. We're going over the video logs for the entire Ward," he said. "See if we can't put together a picture of where he's been on the Citadel."

"Video logs?" Shepard asked. "I hear on Illium that they've got you tracked from the moment you disembark to the moment you leave."

"Heh. Only if you stick to the upper levels," Bailey said. "A fella can get lost real good in the lower reaches of Nos Astra. The Presidium's wired up like that here too, but not the wards. Besides, C-Sec doesn't exactly have the budget they get on Illium."

"What's the next step in your investigation then?" Shepard asked.

"Try to determine a motive. We'll go looking through Mr. Hadely's stuff. See if he had any reason to dislike his boss," the captain said.

"As a Spectre, I'm gonna go back in, have a look around. I need more information about what Bryson was doing," Shepard said.

"I'd prefer it if ya didn't," Bailey said, his voice betraying a kind of steely resignation that seemed to suggest that he knew he couldn't dissuade this woman who outranked him. "To be completely honest, you don't know what you're doing. You're likely to just muck up our investigation."

"We'll be careful," she said walking into the lab. "Liara and Ashley are with me," she added.

"Yeah, sure ya will." Bailey shrugged. "All right, boys," He announced, shouting into the lab. "We've got a Spectre on the scene. So I want you to grant her and her friends here your full cooperation." There were grumbles of discontent from the C-Sec officers. "You don't like it you can find another job," Bailey said in response.

"We'll try to stay out of your way," Shepard added.

"Mmm," Bailey murmured. "Hey, listen, Shepard," he added. "As long as you're gonna go screwing up my investigation, do ya think you can give me a hand with something? I've read over your SA personnel file."

"You've read over my personnel file?" Shepard asked. "While I've been standing here?"

"Well sure," the man said frankly. "My job is to solve the crime. I need to know the motives and backgrounds of anybody who was involved... now you gonna help me or not?"

"What is it you want?" Shepard asked, amused by the man's frankness.

"The file said you'd survived a batarian slaving raid on a colony called Mindoir," he said.

She nodded in the affirmative.

"We've got a little situation brewing down in the lower docks on Zakeria Ward," he continued. "I just came up from there before this." He gestured around at the crime scene. "A batarian transport that the turians liberated came in about an hour ago—full of refugees. They were marked to be transported to temporary housing down in D block until their respective governments could take 'em."

Shepard nodded along.

"Problem is, one of 'em got a hold of a gun at one point, probably on the transport. Piece of shit batarian model, not even user locked. She's threatening to kill herself down there, and well, I think she's gonna do it," Bailey finished.

"Where do I come in, Captain?" Shepard asked.

"That's the thing, Shepard," Bailey began. "In some kinda freak cosmic coincidence, she's from Mindoir, same as you. It practically jumped off the page at me when I read your file. Maybe you knew her? Our records say she's Talitha de la Rosa."

"Mindoir was a big colony..." Shepard tried to explain.

"Well, that's only natural," Bailey said. "I wasn't about to start believing in miracles anyway. But you might just get me a damned sight nearer to believing if you'd go down there and give talking to her a shot. Maybe she'd hear something in your voice. To be honest, most of the ones shook up that bad... well, they don't usually make it."

"I'll head down there right away. Just give me a navpoint," She said, holding up her omnitool.

"Thanks," Bailey said, uploading the information to Shepard's omni.

"Ash, Liara. You two can handle yourselves here until I get back, right?" Shepard asked rhetorically.

"You got it, Skip," Ashley came back.

"Try to find out whatever you can about what Bryson was working on," She clarified.

Liara nodded her head dutifully.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Shepard arrived on the scene only fifteen minutes later. But Talitha, Talitha was beyond saving. The traumatized woman screamed and cried, demanded alternately that she both be taken back to the batarians and that all the batarians needed to stay away from her. "Take them out! Take it out of my brain!" She had cried right before she had pulled the trigger that ended her life. Shepard had turned then toward Lieutenant Girard. "I'm sorry," was all she could bring herself to say. And he had nodded to her in return. "We all are."

~.~.~.~.~.~

Liara paused for a moment as she approached the cockpit of the _Nomandy_ , struck as she was by the pensive image of commander Shepard, who sat gazing out of the cockpit window, watching the silent beauty of the blue light that danced outside the hull as the ship's FTL drive propelled them through the void of space. Lieutenant Moreau sat quietly in the pilot's seat to Shepard's left, concentrating solely on the controls. He seemed to be avoiding conversation with the sullen Spectre.

They were en route to the next primary mass relay, the next way-point on their way through the chain of mass-free corridors that wove the galaxy together like a web. It struck her then that the relay network, the legacy of the Protheans, was a series of linkages that ignored all political and social boundaries. Nowhere was this more evident than out here, in this colony project which the humans had named the Attican Traverse and populated with names from their ancient mythologies. The names may have spoke of mystical realms—Eden, Hades, Elysium—but the reality was far more mundane. It was an untamed frontier, a buffer zone, between Citadel Space and the lawless Terminus Systems beyond. It was here where the humans, Shepard's people, came into conflict with the batarians over the strip of the Traverse that bordered batarian space, the Skylian Verge.

That the batarian homeworld, Kar'Shan, was but a single primary relay jump from the Systems Alliance's Exodus Cluster was enough to make both powers uneasy. The linkages of the mass relays probed into and out of the Traverse, without respecting any race's territory. The relay network ensured that territory in space couldn't be held the way nations used to be defended on planets. Rather than a long shared boarder with an enemy—or for that matter an ally—there were single points of contact. Invading ships could only come through the network, the distances that the primary relays bridged were too vast to be surmounted practically by FTL drives. But counterintuitively, this left the Traverse porous and open from all sides, surrounded as it was by the Terminus. The Traverse resembled a peninsula jutting counterspinwise out from Inner Citadel space into the Terminus, with the space occupied by the baterians hedged in between the Alliance and their Traverse on one side, and the emptiness between galaxies, dark space, on the other. This position only served to make the already paranoid Hegemony more aggressive and posturing. The Systems Alliance had a more difficult job to do than any other power, their population was spread out so far and yet so thin into the Traverse.

Based on the results of the investigations in Bryson's lab, Shepard had set the _Normandy's_ destination for the Caleston Rift, a system on the far side of the Attican Traverse, the very edge of what could be properly called Citadel Space. Beyond that point lay the Terminus Systems, a patchwork of rogue, unaligned, or otherwise ungoverned states, territories and races. To secure its citizenry, the Systems Alliance needed to secure this entire frontier, a zone that had become accustomed to pirates and slavers from the Terminus. The older races, and particularly the Council races, had things easier when it came to securing borders. Their colonies and worlds were clustered closer to the Citadel. With that relatively safe territory claimed, the humans, the newcomers, had been given the Traverse and expected to tame it for the Citadel. The humans seemed eager, but sometimes they paid a terrible price. Shepard's past was proof of that. When Liara compared that life to the safety and luxury of Thessia, it made her feel embarrassed by her own, patrician problems.

Here before her was that woman, Shepard, a product of the Traverse, staring off into its space, seemingly lost in her thoughts. "Shepard," Liara spoke, grabbing the commander's attention.

"Li, hey," Shepard said, snapping out of her daydream. "Is it that time already?" She asked.

Liara nodded. "If you would like to reschedule..."

"No" Shepard stated. "Now's as good a time as any. You can find the way to Aysur without me, right Joker?"

"Ma'am," came the flight lieutenant's humorless reply, coupled with an affirmative nod of the head.

Shepard got up from her seat and followed Liara to the lift. The two rode in silence down to the crewdeck, and proceeded into Shepard's quarters.

"Are you sure you are... in the mood for this, Shepard?" Liara asked when they were inside Shepard's room.

"Of course," Shepard blurted out, standing by her dresser where she had poured a glass of water. Then, after some thought, she added, "Why? What do you mean?"

"It is only that... if you are... distracted. It will make the meld difficult," Liara explained, fidgeting slightly with her hands.

"Oh..." Shepard sighed. "That obvious, am I?" She asked, putting down her glass of water and turning toward Liara.

"You have been affected by the death of that woman from Mindoir," Liara observed.

"She's just a causality like many others I've faced... at least, that's how it should be." Shepard sighed. "You don't think anybody else noticed do you?" She asked.

"I still find humans somewhat hard to read, but I would venture to say that, those of us who consider you to be our friend have noticed. According to Ashley you _stood up_ Kaidan, I believe was the term she used."

"I didn't stand him up," she said, walking forward. "I told him before hand that he'd have to take a rain check on that one... but yeah... I wasn't really in the mood for a date after that," she finished, sitting down on the end of her bed.

"I am sure he understands," Liara nodded.

"The thing that bugs me more than anything else is just... that it bugs me at all," Shepard confessed. "One person shouldn't be able to get under my skin like that, ya know? I'm a soldier," she said, looking up at Liara. "I'm trained to accept casualties. It's a just a fact of this job."

"But she wasn't just another causality was she?" Liara asked.

"She should be. There shouldn't be preferences; you can't show favorites," Shepard stated.

Liara sat down next to Shepard. "That is a noble ideal," She said. "An ideal can be something to strive for, but it is not something that can be attained."

"Do you ever wonder what you would be like if circumstances were different? What things would be like if you had led a different life?" Shepard asked.

"I hardly think that that person ought to be called me," Liara said.

"Maybe... but I just... What if I had been captured on Mindoir?"

"You will never know the answer to such questions," Liara stated, concern etched into her face.

"I guess so... It just seems like... that could have been me..." She stared ahead. "Maybe out there, somewhere, it _is_ Sarah..." she trailed off, inhaling sharply, but her breath caught several times in her throat as she drew the air. "Excuse me," she said, seeming to apologize.

Liara reached down and grabbed her hand. "I don't think that we would have much success in exploring your vision right now if we tried," she spoke after a silence.

"Great, I've let my feelings compromise my command," Shepard stated, removing her hand from Liara's.

"That is not what I wished to imply," Liara said. "Your mind must be somewhat clear if we are to have any success. If this event has stirred up memories... we can either bring them to the forefront with a meld, where your psyche can examine and deal with them, or we can wait for them to settle again."

"And who knows how long that will be?" Shepard asked. "No, we have to do it then."

"You are sure?" Liara asked hopefully surprised.

"We can't let Saren beat us to Conduit," Shepard stated emphatically. "This is something we have to do."

Liara felt frustration visit her—that was not the correct sort of reason to undertake such an endeavor—but she couldn't imagine how to explain that to the stubborn woman sitting next to her.

"That is not... What I'm trying to say is... Shepard, if you want to do this. Do this as a friend. And for that reason only."

"Liara?" Shepard asked.

Liara stood up, a feeling of rejection washing over her that she couldn't rationally explain; Shepard was not obligated to accept such an intimate form of help from her. Why had she even suggested such a thing in the first place? "If you do not feel that you would like my help, as a friend..." She trailed off.

"Liara, wait. I think I missed something back there..." Shepard said getting up from the bed. "I really appreciate your friendship. I mean _really_. I've never had a friend as close as you before... when you hugged me in the medbay..." Shepard said. "That meant a lot to me."

Liara felt the pain lift from her and moved forward, hugging Shepard again in her joy. This time Shepard's arms found themselves wrapped around Liara with little hesitation.

"Thanks," Shepard said.

"Do you want to..." Liara asked hesitantly.

"You do," Shepard stated the fact.

"I am your friend. I care about you," Liara said, breaking the hug.

"Like I said, that means a lot. So let's do this thing," Shepard said, smiling sheepishly.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Sunlight flooded into the window of family's skycar, warming the bare skin of her crossed forearms as she sat pouting in her overalls, the cheep, volus manufactured "brown and tans" that were nearly ubiquitous on the poorer colony worlds of the Traverse. Her forehead rested against the passenger window, her eyes looking down at the fields of soy and wheat that rushed by below, but she wasn't really seeing them. She was... she was just sixteen... young and angry, angry at the driver of the skycar, the young man sitting next to her. _Caleb_. Her brother, Caleb.

It had been nearly three days since she had taken the rap for his sins, three days since her mother had discovered the pornographic magazine he had hidden under _her_ mattress. Fucking coward. He didn't even have the balls to hide the damn thing under his own goddamned mattress. Of all the stupid fucking places to hide something. _Idiot has shit for brains_ , she thought as the skycar passed over Verlaine's creek below. She knew of a million fucking places where you could hide something so that Mom and Dad would never find it. If the fucking moron had just _asked_ her. Instead he had stashed it... under _her_ bed.

And, of course, nobody had believed _her_ when she had protested her innocence. After all, her sister, Sarah, was far too young to be interested in such things. And who would have ever believed that Caleb—perfect, suck up, do-no-wrong Caleb—would be beating his meat to a magazine full of hunky studs? No, it had to be Rachel—Rachel the hellion, Rachel the troublemaker, Rachel the skeptic who asked all the wrong questions... and, of course, Rachel, the one who had slipped the lion-snake into the pastor's son's shoe after he had told her she was going to hell for asking him why Jesus had commanded his disciples to love him more than their families—it had to be her.

It couldn't have been perfect Caleb. Caleb always got good grades. Caleb always had the answers to bible study. Caleb was always polite. Caleb even had latent biotic potential, so Caleb had to take the family skycar down to Giraud city to attend the pro bono biotics class the Systems Alliance hosted on Saturdays. _Caleb this and Caleb that_ , she thought. It was no wonder the smug little shit was so full of himself.

"You're too old for this," Caleb spoke, breaking the relative silence of the skycar cockpit.

The sound of the air-conditioner continued to whir, but Rachel said nothing and kept her gaze firmly fixed on the world below.

"You really think you're never gonna talk to me again?" He asked.

Again, she said nothing.

"You're just pissed cause I didn't share it with you. You woulda rubbed one out too," he teased.

She bit down on her lip, squelching a smile, determined not allow him the satisfaction of eliciting the slightest bit of mirth from her. He knew her particular brand of raunchy humor well, but she was in no mood to cede an inch to him.

"Look, what do you think Mom and Dad would have done if they had caught me with _that_?" He continued. "I'm think'n about seminary for God's sake. If they found out... I'd have to leave the Church. There's lots of other churches but... how do you think Mom and Dad would feel, honestly... me joining a liberal church?"

The smug asshole was actually trying to justify this shit to her. Well, if the perfect little darling had been forced to disappoint Mom and Dad for once in his perfect little life, it would have been no sweat off of her back. The suck up knew how to lie like an MP. He knew how to keep the lies small and innocent enough that Mom and Dad would believe him. Everything _she_ said, on the other hand, was questioned.

"Fine," he declared, bringing the skycar down to a landing by tower eight.

They had come out here to manually activate the water flow from the Zhi plot. Water politics on Mindoir were a byzantine, but ultimately congenial affair. There was, after all, plenty of water on the planet for the few scattered settlements and farms. But the long and short of it was that it was now time to increase the flow from Mr. Zhi's farm to the Shepard's property.

Rachel hopped out of the car and stood in the dry, compacted dirt of the trail that ran by tower eight, soaking up the heat of the midday sun.

"C'mon, you get up there an' open it," Caleb prodded. "You could've done this yourself if you hadn't lost skycar privileges."

She looked daggers at her older brother who just smiled back at her smugly. Deciding she wouldn't let the arrogant turd get the best of of her, she turned around and made her way around the base of the concrete tower which housed the controls that regulated the water flow from Mr. Zhi's property. She grabbed hold of the rungs of the metal ladder that jutted out from the poured concrete of the tower and made her way to the top.

As she scrambled up onto the top of the platform she heard a soft thud, the sound seemingly faint from having traveled quite a distance. She stood up and methodically scanned the horizon in every direction, but seeing nothing of interest she made her way over to the flow regulator.

Another faint thud, like a bang with all of the treble attenuated out of it from traveling so far.

"What the hell?" She asked under her breath, wandering over to the edge of the spire. Peering over the edge of the tower and saw Caleb scrambling back toward the skycar.

"Hey," She shouted down at him indignantly, breaking her silence for the first time in three days. "Don't you dare leave me here."

"Just stay here," Caleb shouted back, running around to the side-hatch of the skycar.

"Fucking asshole," she muttered, jogging back to the ladder and scurrying quickly down.

Running around the side of the concrete tower, she stopped as she saw Caleb pull the family's hunting rifle from the side-compartment and head back to the cockpit of the skycar.

"Wait," She cried again angrily as she began running toward him.

"Just stay here," he repeated. But she ignored him, running ever faster toward the skycar. His body began to shimmer with biotic energy as he let loose a biotic push that sent her slamming down to the ground. She landed flat on her ass with a bone-shaking thud, her teeth rattling.

"Ow, fuck," she exclaimed, as Caleb hopped into the cockpit of the skycar and hit the ignition sequence. "You son of a bitch!" She shouted, scrambling for a rock or something that she could pitch at the rising skycar. He was supposed to be forbidden from using his biotics on his siblings, but this hadn't been the first time he had broken that rule. Finding nothing that could serve as a projectile, she simply rose to her feet and settled for screaming at the top of her lungs instead.

"Ahhhhh!" She screamed so loud that it hurt her throat as the skycar flew off into the distance. "Ahhhh!" She screamed again, this time at the sheer futility of first scream's failure to assuage the boiling rage inside her.

She stared at the receding skycar which was disappearing, shrinking into a dot in the distant sky. "Goddamned faggot, son of a bitch!" She shouted at the dot when her throat had recovered slightly.

When the dot had finally disappeared, she turned around and surveyed her surroundings, opting finally to climb back up to the top of the tower and release the water before making for home. Her parents would expect the job to get done regardless of sibling squabbles. It was just like that pompous idiot to get it in his head that he was gonna go play hero to some nonexistent threat. Mindoir was too smalltime, too close to Arcturus, to attract pirates or slavers, everybody knew so, and said as much all the time.

Having completed the task in short order, she walked along the dusty trail which led back from tower eight to the main irrigation control, as Mindoir's midday sun beat down on the hard soil with its rays, the color temperature of which were close to that of Earth's star, or so she had been told. Her eyes stayed glued to the edge of the channel the whole way, looking for lionsnakes, amphibious translucent insectivores which were native to Mindoir and which the natives had so named on account of their long, wriggly bodies and decorative "mane-like" frills around their heads. Lionsnakes would bioluminesce in spectacular patterns when threatened; poke at them with a stick or throw a rock in the water near them and they wold put on a good show for their harasser. House cats seemed to love them, there being a lack of anything resembling birdlife on Mindoir.

She had read somewhere once that the Council bureau in charge of overseeing the Systems Alliance's spread into the Traverse had tried to dissuade humans from bringing invasive species like dogs and cats with them to their colonies. They had failed to understand the bond that many humans had with animals, but she agreed with _them_. She didn't understand what people saw in pets. _I mean, Mifune's good for nothing_ , she thought. Lazy cat. Just lying around all day, leaving dead lionsnakes on the doormat. _Maybe dogs are better_ , she mused. Mr. Goddard has a dog, Chloe. She had had a chance to play with it once when she had accompanied her father to Mr. Goddard's ranch. It was more than happy to follow her commands, running after the ball she kept throwing for it. That thing seems much more friendly than Mifune. Still not very bright though, nothing like a person. _I guess that's the charm though_ , she mused. _Maybe I'll get one when I get off this rock. I wanna see Earth at any rate. They've got all kinds of pets there... and pet owners all seems pretty taken with their pets, so there must be something in it. Maybe Mifune is just a fluke, a crap cat._

She had walked for nearly an hour, lost in both her thoughts and the process of harassing the occasional lionsnake, before she first noticed the black plume that was rising in the distance. Quickly losing all interest in lionsnakes she picked up her leisurely pace. _If only Mom and Dad weren't so cheep_ , she thought, cursing them. Everybody else her age had a fricking omni. She'd just have to double-time it back to home to find out what's up. But the closer she got the worse and worse the situation began to look.

A gnawing feeling of unease grew more and more intense as she drew closer and closer to the homestead, and the smell of burning chemicals filled her nostrils. Rounding the final bend in the path at a jogging pace, her heart seemed to stop when she got sight of the smoldering remains of her home. She dashed off toward the smoking pile as fast as her feet could carry her, but her heart sank further and further as she approached the burnt chaos.

"Mom!" She shouted. "Dad! Caleb! Sarah!"

She ran over to where the skycar that Caleb had flown off in when he had left her at the tower was parked. It was riddled through with holes. Circling around behind the car she saw him, her brother, lying on the ground. She ran up to him and crouched down, trying to jostle him awake, but the entire back of his head had been blown clean off. She knelt there on the ground feeling terrified... terrified and helpless. She was overcome with her feelings of helplessness. Just knowing that there was nothing that could be done to undo this, nothing that would ever fix this, make it right again. The universe itself seemed like the embodiment of cruelty at that moment, or at least a terrifying, cold indifference. It felt as if she was falling, spinning out of control somehow even though in reality she was glued so solidly to the oppressive ground. Finally, she simply threw up. In a final insult, she was helpless to control even her own body as the unpleasant contractions of her throat expelled bile from her stomach on to the hard dirt of the landing tarmac.

Liara broke the meld, coughing and choking in tandem with Shepard. As soon as she was recovered, she drew Shepard into her arms, hugged her tightly.

"The Alliance later found Mom and Dad's remains in the wreckage of the house," Shepard croaked out. "Said that it looked self-inflicted. Like somebody had deliberately detonated the hydrogen tanks. They... " her lip began to quiver. "They never found Sarah," she said burying her head in Liara. "I don't know why she wouldn't have been in the house..." she blurted out through gritted teeth.

"It's okay," Liara said rocking the crying woman back and forth, cradling her head in her bosom. Instinctively, she kissed Shepard on the forehead. "It's alright," she said through her own tears. "It is alright."


End file.
